Refunds & disputes

A refund starts on an order — when it is cancelled, edited down, or refunded outright — and then has to actually reach the customer. This page is about the second half: where the money goes, what happens when it cannot get there, and where to look when a customer says it never arrived.

Where to find it

Dashboard → Reports (/reports/pending-refunds) — Admin, Co-Admin

Refunds are issued from the order itself; this is where you watch the ones still in flight.

Where the money goes back to

Every refund picks a destination:

Method	Notes
Original payment method	Back to the card or wallet the customer paid with. Bank processing means several days
Wallet credit	Instant, and the customer usually spends it with you again
Cash	Recorded, not moved — for a refund handed over at the counter
Bank transfer	Recorded, for a transfer you make outside the platform

Which methods staff may choose, and whether refunds go out automatically, are set per role in Dashboard → Settings → Configuration → Feature (/settings/settings/feature-settings) — separately for edits and for cancellations. A large-refund threshold can require an explicit confirmation above an amount you choose.

Wallet fallback

A gateway refund can fail for reasons nobody controls — an expired card, a closed account, a payment method that does not support refunds. With wallet fallback on, the amount is credited to the customer’s wallet instead of being left stuck. Turn it on unless you have a policy reason not to.

Watching refunds in flight

A card refund is not instant, so refunds sit in a queue until the gateway confirms them:

Report	Route	Use it to
Pending Refunds	/reports/pending-refunds	See every refund not yet confirmed
Aging Pending Refunds	/reports/cancellation-aging-refunds	Find the ones that have been waiting too long
Cancellation Fees Collected	/reports/cancellation-fees-collected	The other direction — fees you kept
Transaction Ledger	/reports/edit-order-transaction-ledger	Money collected and refunded through order edits
Aging Outstanding	/reports/edit-order-aging-outstanding	Edit-related balances owed in either direction

The aging reports are the ones to check weekly. A refund that has been pending for days is a support ticket that has not been raised yet — reaching the customer first turns a complaint into good service.

When a customer says the refund never arrived

1. Check the order. The refund is recorded there with its method and status.

2. Check Pending Refunds. If it is listed, the gateway has not confirmed it yet, and card refunds routinely take several business days.

3. Check your gateway dashboard. If the platform shows it as sent and the gateway does not, that is where the answer is.

4. If the gateway refund failed and wallet fallback is on, the amount is already in the customer’s wallet — tell them, because they will not have noticed.

Chargebacks and disputes

A chargeback is different from a refund: the customer went to their bank instead of to you, and the bank has taken the money back pending an answer.

You are notified when a dispute is opened, and the notification is configurable along with your other alerts under Dashboard → Storefront → Content → Notifications (/settings/notification/global-notification/lang/:langID).

Disputes are answered in your payment gateway’s own dashboard, not here. The gateway asks for evidence — the order, the delivery confirmation, your refund policy — within a deadline it sets. Miss the deadline and the chargeback stands automatically.

The cheapest defence is operational, not administrative: a clear billing descriptor so customers recognise the charge, an itemised receipt, and answering a refund request quickly enough that the customer never phones their bank.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Try this
Refund shows as sent but the customer hasn’t received it	Card refunds take several business days; confirm the date in your gateway dashboard
A refund failed at the gateway	With wallet fallback on it has gone to the wallet — otherwise reissue it by another method
Staff cannot issue a refund	Role permissions for refunds are set per role in Feature Settings
A large refund needs approval	That is the large-refund threshold doing its job
A refund was issued twice	Check the order’s refund history before issuing manually — an automatic refund may already have run
A dispute was lost without you doing anything	Disputes have a gateway-side deadline; watch for the notification

Related: Editing & refunds · Cancellations · Earnings & settlements · Wallet