How to Perform a Refund or Void
You may encounter situations where you need to issue a refund or void a transaction. It's important to understand the difference between the two, as well as how to perform each one correctly. In this article, we'll provide step-by-step instructions on how to perform a refund or void a transaction in your member's account.
Refunds:
A refund is a transaction in which the customer is reimbursed for a payment they have made. Refunds can be partial or full and can be issued for a variety of reasons, such as a cancellation of a membership or class, a billing error, or dissatisfaction with a product or service.
Voids:
A void is a transaction in which a payment is canceled before it's processed. Voids apply to the entire amount of the transaction and can be performed for various reasons, such as an accidental duplicate transaction, a customer's change of mind, or a mistake in the payment amount.
Here are the steps to perform a refund or void:
- Access your member's account and locate the transaction you want to refund/void.
- Verify the transaction details, including the amount, payment method, and member information.
- Select the reverse circulating arrow at the end of the line item to issue a refund/void.
- Enter the refund amount, if it's a partial refund.
- Confirm the refund/void by entering the required reason.
Cannot edit this transaction
This dialog box appears because the payment that was just charged has not yet completed being processed. Therefore, if you try to edit the transaction before it's fully reconciled, you will see the message "Cannot edit this transaction. The transaction has not yet fully reconciled. Please try again in a few moments." This message is simply a reminder to wait until the payment has been fully processed before attempting to make any changes to it (which may take anywhere from 5-15 minutes, depending on the member's bank.)
More on Voids vs. Refunds
A void is performed on a same-day transaction and is typically a straightforward process because the payment has not yet been settled. A settlement is a process by which a payment is transferred from the member's account to the merchant's account, and it typically takes a few business days to complete.
If a same-day transaction needs to be voided, the payment has not yet been settled and therefore can be canceled before it's processed. The void request will be sent to the payment processor to stop the transaction from being processed, and the customer's account will not be charged. This means that the funds will never be transferred from the customer's account to the merchant's account.
However, if the payment has already been settled, a void request will not be successful, and the transaction will need to be refunded instead. Refunding a settled payment can take several business days for the funds to be returned to the customer's account. Therefore, it's important to void a transaction as soon as possible if a mistake has been made, to avoid any delay in the customer receiving their refund.
Once a transaction has been voided, it cannot be reversed. If you need to process the payment again, you will need to initiate a new transaction.
Troubleshooting Voids And Refunds
In the uncommon case where you have recently changed your merchant payment gateway (e.g., Authorize.net), you will not be able to refund a transaction before the switch happened. If you still have access to the old payment gateway, you can log into it and process the refund. If you do not have access to the old payment gateway, mailing a check may be a solution.