Process a Whole or Partial Refund
If an order is modified and its balance reduced, or the whole order is cancelled, the customer is due a refund. To process the refund, follow these steps:
- Click "Payments" in the order sub menu.
- Find the payment to which the refund should be applied. Click "Issue Refund" in the upper right corner of the payment.
- The refund amount defaults to the negative amount of the order balance.
- Click "Process".
The Payments details now shows the processed refund:
If you attempt to issue a partial refund on the same day the original payment was processed, your payment gateway will most likely return an error and fail to process the refund. This is because the payment gateway is unaware of the original payment until a nightly batch process happens. Since it is unaware of the original payment, it does not know which payment should have the refund applied. You have two options in this scenario: 1) process a full refund (which in essence is a void) and then re-charge the new net amount; or 2) wait until the next day, when the charge has gone through, and then process the partial refund using the steps above.
Refund Limitations
A refund may fail to process for one or more reasons. Each reason is explained below:
Partial Refund on Same Day As Payment
If you attempt to issue a partial refund on the same day the original payment was processed, your payment gateway will return an error and fail to process the refund. This is because the payment gateway is unaware of the original payment until a nightly batch process happens. Since it is unaware of the original payment, it does not know which payment should have the refund applied. You have two options in this scenario: 1) process a full refund (which in essence is a void) and then re-charge the new net amount; or 2) wait until the next day, when the charge has gone through, and then process the partial refund using the steps in the previous section above.
Your Payment Gateway's Refund Window Has Passed
Payment gateways define available refund windows. The time period varies depending on the gateway you use. For example, Authorize.net’s current policy is 120 days of the date the original transaction was settled can a refund be issued. PayPal Payflow Pro has a 180 day window. Each payment gateway has FAQs on their websites that are a great resource to let you know the refund policy. If the refund window has closed, you will have to issue a manual check for the refund amount, and then process the refund in Boomer using the manual payment gateway (see the next section for instructions on how to do this).
Credit Card Has Been Purged
Credit card details must be purged periodically per PCI rules. You can set the number of days that determines when credit card details are purged, but take caution before changing this number since PCI requires a minimum number (which is the default in Boomer). If the credit card has been purged, a notification will appear when you attempt to issue a refund:
Your option in this case is to process the refund in Boomer using the manual payment gateway (see the next section for instructions on how to do this) and then log directly into your payment gateway to process the refund there.
The Credit Card Has Expired
You cannot process a refund if the credit card's expiration date has passed. If the card number remained the same, you or the customer can simply edit the card's expiration date and then try the refund again. Payments on file may be edited by navigation to the Contacts\Payments On File area.
Refund Using Manual Payment Gateway
There may be an occasion where you are unable to issue a refund that flows down to your payment gateway (one of the reasons documented in the Refund Limitations section above might be the cause). This might be because the credit card number has been purged, or for some other reason you were forced to go directly into your payment gateway and issue the refund. When this happens, you can still process the refund as above except check the box "Refund Using Manual Payment Gateway". Doing this bypasses sending the actual refund on to your payment gateway. When this box gets checked, the following message appears:
Refunding a Check
If your store is configured to allow checks to settle payment in an order, then "Check" is an available payment method and you would have followed these steps Process a Manual Check to process the payment. If, however, you need to issue a refund against the check you received, you can do so by following these steps:
- Navigate to the Payments area within the order.
- Click "Issue Refund" in the upper right corner of the check payment:
- Enter either the full or partial amount you want to refund:
- Click the "Refund" button to finalize the refund.