Refunds and voids

Refunds and voids are handled on the terminal, not in the portal. There is no refund screen in the back office today — you don't issue or view refunds from here. What the portal controls is who is allowed to do them.

This article is the policy page: who can refund, and how refunds are modelled. For the actual step-by-step on the device, see Process a refund or void on the terminal.

Refund vs void

The two words mean different things, and which one applies depends on whether the sale has been paid:

• A void removes an item from a tab before it's paid. No money has moved, so nothing is returned.
• A refund gives money back on a sale that has already been settled.

Where a refund happens

A staff member refunds a settled sale from the terminal's Records screen — the device's list of past sales. They open the sale and choose to refund the whole order, the remaining amount, or one payment of a split. A void, by contrast, is a per-line control on an open tab. Whether either appears depends on two things:

• the mode the device is in (which decides what the device can do), and
• the staff role of the person signed in (which decides what that person can do).

Controlling who can refund

Staff roles include a Refunds permission, under Payments & money. Give that permission only to the roles you trust with refunds — for example managers — and leave it off for everyone else. A staff member without it won't see the refund action on the device.

You manage roles under Staff → Roles. See the Staff articles for how roles and permissions work.

Refunding a cash sale

A sale taken in cash has no card to send money back to, so it is refunded from the drawer instead. On a till that offers it, open the cash sale in the Records screen and you'll see a Refund button there too. If your till shows no refund button on a cash sale, it hasn't had the update yet: hand the cash back and record it the way you handle your float.

1. 1

   Choose what to refund

   Refund the whole sale, or tick just the items being given back. On a split bill, each cash payment can be refunded on its own.

2. 2

   Pick a reason

   The reasons are your wastage reasons (Store settings → Wastage reasons), plus Customer refund, which is always offered. Staff can add a short note too. If your venue wastes refunded items automatically, this step also offers Nothing to waste — put back in stock for an item that comes back unused.

3. 3

   Hand the cash back

   The drawer opens so the cash can come out. If you run the cash drawer ledger and a session is open, the refund is recorded as cash out of that drawer, so your expected total stays right.

4. 4

   Give the new receipt

   The till prints a refund receipt: the refunded items and the reason, then the corrected bill showing what the customer has actually paid.

The sale then shows as Refunded or Part refunded, in the till's Records screen and in the portal's sales log, and its detail page lists the refund with its reason.

What happens to the refunded items is your choice, under Store settings → Cash drawer → After a cash refund: they go back in stock for the team to waste if they can't be sold (the default), or they're recorded as wastage straight away and show in the Wastage report with a Refund marker. With the second, staff can still switch on Nothing to waste — put back in stock for a single refund, and that refund's items go back in stock instead. See Cash drawer.

Cash refunds use the same Refunds permission as card refunds. A staff member without it won't see the button.

Reporting

The Daily sales report takes refunds off: it lists them under Returns, and its Net sales is what you took after refunds and VAT. The Sales report covers the sales taken, after discounts, and doesn't model refunds as their own line. A refund still goes through and shows on the sale's status (in the terminal's Records screen and in the portal sales log) — it just isn't itemised in the report totals yet. See Refund problems.

If you run more than one location, remember the sales report you're comparing against may be filtered to a single site — check the Location dropdown before concluding a refunded sale is missing.

What's next

• Process a refund or void on the terminal — the device steps.
• Refund problems and common questions — failed refunds, timing, expired cards, missing buttons.
• The sales log — review the sales themselves.