✨ Please note: Payments are available on the Lite plan or above.
Refunds return payments to customers for cancelled or changed bookings. Bookwhen doesn’t process refunds automatically, so you’ll need to issue them manually through your payment gateway or another offline method.
This article explains how to issue refunds and manage returned payments.
How to identify a refund requirement
When a customer cancels their booking, Bookwhen will mark "Refund" next to the booking reference in the Bookings tab list, highlighting that a refund is required.
For example:
How to create a refund
💡 Refunds in Bookwhen are for record-keeping only. They do not trigger automatic refunds. You still need to process refunds manually and keep records up to date.
To create a refund:
Select the Bookings tab from the left-hand menu on your account.
Locate the booking on your list by either scrolling through or using the search filters at the top.
Once you've added any relevant filters, select Search to generate the search.
Select the booking reference hyperlink for the booking you'd like to action a refund for:
To issue a refund, you must ensure the booking has been cancelled. If it hasn't, select Cancel this booking or locate the ticket and cancel it.
Refunding an online payment
If the customer paid by card, select the View payment link:
The View payment link takes you to the payment page on your chosen payment provider's website (you may need to log in to your payment provider account).
You can then process the refund:
Once you have processed the refund on your gateway, you can return to the booking on Bookwhen to record it.
Refunding an offline payment
Offline payments are processed outside Bookwhen, so you’ll need to arrange the refund directly with the customer using their original payment method.
Once you’ve issued the refund, you can record it in Bookwhen.
Alternatives to refunds
Instead of issuing a refund, you can also:
Transfer the ticket to another event or date.
Offer a unique discount code that they can use on a future booking (available on the Lite plan and above).
💡 To note: Discount codes can’t be redeemed in stages. If you offer a customer a discount code, let them know they must apply the full discount to a single transaction.
Handling overcharges
If a customer has been overcharged for classes that aren’t covered by their pass, you can resolve this by:
Issuing a refund: Refund the overcharged amount through your payment provider, such as Stripe.
Offering a discount code: Create a discount code that the customer can use towards a new pass or additional classes.
Choose the option that best suits your customer’s situation.
Recording a refund within Bookwhen
Issuing a refund through your payment provider doesn’t automatically update the booking in Bookwhen. To record the refund in Bookwhen, cancel the relevant ticket or booking.
Cancel ticket: Cancels a specific ticket without cancelling the rest of the booking. Use this option when a booking includes multiple tickets, and you only need to cancel one.
Cancel this booking: Cancels the entire booking, including all tickets. Find this option under Options.
Once cancelled, you have the option to record the refund by selecting the Record refund button:
The Record refund section is especially handy if you are only partially refunding and would like a record of how much you refunded. You can record:
The Refund amount
When it was Received on
The Payment type
A space for any Notes you may wish to add that may come in handy for future reference:
💡 To note: You can’t use Record refund for pass purchases, even if all tickets linked to the pass have been cancelled and the pass revoked.
FAQ: Recording refunds in Bookwhen
Bookwhen doesn’t automatically record refunds issued through your payment provider. If you refund an online payment through Stripe, for example, you’ll need to record the refund separately in Bookwhen.
When does the "Record refund" button appear?
The Record refund button appears when the total payments for a booking exceed its total cost. This can happen when:
A ticket or booking is cancelled.
A discount is recalculated, such as after an admin transfers a booking.
This applies to both online and offline payments. Keeping both records up to date helps you reconcile payments between Bookwhen and your payment provider.
💡 To note: Recording a refund in Bookwhen doesn’t issue the payment back to the customer. You’ll need to process the refund separately through your payment provider or arrange an offline payment directly.
Adding a refund policy
Select Settings from the left-hand menu, then Payments.
Under Refund policy, select Edit:
Add your refund policy blurb in the Refund policy field:
Select Save changes when you have added all of the relevant information.
Refunding via Worldpay
How you issue a refund depends on when the payment was taken and whether you’ve migrated to the new payment provider. If you’ve migrated and the payment was processed through Worldpay (CyberSource), you must issue the refund through your Enterprise Business Centre dashboard.
Refunding via Worldpay post-migration (CyberSource)
Any payments taken before your migration date were collected through the old Worldpay payment provider (WPOP). Refunds for these payments had to be issued through WPOP, but access to this system was revoked after 28th November 2022 when WPOP was closed.
Refunding via Worldpay pre-migration (WPOP)
If you needed to refund a payment taken before migration, you would have had to do so through your old WPOP account before access was removed.
Useful Worldpay links 🔗