Refunds and Voids
Reverse transactions cleanly so the drawer, inventory, and reporting stay accurate.
Where to find it
- Web register: click Returns in the register header, scan or type the receipt number, and the sale's lines appear.
- iPad register: open the Transactions tab, tap the sale, then Return / Refund.
Both open the same flow: the lines that can still come back, how many of each, the reason, whether the item goes back on the floor, and how the money goes back. A void is offered from the same screen.
Void a transaction
A void cancels a whole sale — every line goes back on the shelf and the customer gets the full amount back.
- Look the sale up as above and choose Void the whole sale instead.
- Enter a reason and confirm.
- A manager approves the void before it goes through: the cashier picks the manager from the register's list, and the manager enters their PIN. The list is everyone at the affiliate whose role carries the Approve Register Overrides permission and who has a PIN. Admins and store managers have the permission by default, and an affiliate admin can give it to any other role under Administration → Roles. The PIN is the same one the person uses at the time clock, on whichever of their roles it was set; someone with no PIN yet is not in the list, and sets one under their account's Settings → Security. The approval is given on the void itself, so there is nothing left over for anyone to reuse once the manager walks away. If nobody qualifies yet, the register asks for the manager's email and PIN instead. An admin can switch this off for ordinary sales under Administration → Checkout giving → Voids and returns; a sale that carried a round-up or a checkout donation always needs a manager, because the donor already holds a receipt for that gift (see Asking for a donation). Voiding such a sale reverses the donation with it and says so on the confirmation.
Voiding a sale is its own permission (Void Sales), separate from taking a return or cancelling a card charge. Store staff hold it by default: the cashier starts the void, and the manager's approval is the control. Giving that approval is a separate permission again (Approve Register Overrides), so a role can be allowed to start a void without being allowed to approve one.
A card payment is reversed on the payment processor first; if that fails, the sale is left as it was and the message says so. Cash is handed back from the drawer of the register doing the void. If that is not the register that rang the sale, both drawers record it — a paid out on the voiding register and a paid in on the original, since the original till still holds the cash — so both close correctly.
A sale that already has a refund against it can't be voided — the void would put every item back on the shelf and hand back the whole total on top of the refund already made. Refund the remaining items instead.
Issue a refund
A refund returns money for some or all of a sale completed previously.
- Look the sale up as above.
- Set how many of each line are coming back, pick a reason, and untick Back to the floor for anything that isn't going back into stock.
- Choose how the money goes back: cash (from this register's drawer) or the original card.
- Confirm. The refund and the return number are shown, and the return prints on the receipt printer where there is one.
A refund to the original card goes back to that card at the payment processor before the return is recorded. If the processor refuses it, or the sale was not paid by card (cash, or a card run on a standalone terminal), the register says so and records nothing: take the refund in cash instead. A sale split between a card and cash can only send back to the card what the card paid; the message says how much that is. The receipt lookup already shows what each item was paid, so a partial return refunds that share and leaves the rest returnable later.
In the transaction list, a refund is its own record with its own receipt number, shown as Refund of the sale it came from with a negative amount, and the sale it refunds reads Partially refunded or Refunded. A void has no record of its own: the sale itself reads Voided.
A cash refund needs this register's drawer to be open; the register refuses it otherwise, the same way it refuses a cash sale.
What gets refunded
A receipted refund returns what the customer paid for the items, not the shelf price. Any line or transaction discount that applied to the item stays applied, and the tax refunded is the tax collected on that item at the time of sale, even if the store's tax rate has changed since. A sale to a tax-exempt customer refunds no tax.
You can return part of a line — two of the four chairs — and the rest of it later. Each refund is worked out from what was paid for the whole line, so several partial returns add up to exactly the line total and never a cent more. The receipt lookup shows, for each item, how many units can still be returned.
A no-receipt return refunds the catalogue price with tax at the store's current rate, because there is no record of what was actually paid.
What the books record
Every sale posts a journal entry when accounting integration is set up, and a refund or a void takes it back the way it was booked.
- A refund books the merchandise off sales revenue, the tax off sales tax payable and the cash out, from what was actually paid for the returned units. Cash and card refunds book the same way. A gift reversed with a full return is booked as a donation refund of its own, so it is never taken off sales revenue.
- A void undoes the sale's entry as a unit. An entry that has not yet synced to your accounting system is voided in place and never reaches it. One that has already synced gets a mirrored reversing entry, line for line, card fee and cash rounding included.
If a refund cannot be booked, say because the store has no account mapping, the refund still goes through and the gap is listed under Giving exceptions as Refund never booked, so it can be entered as an adjustment. A void that cannot be booked is refused instead, so the books and the register never disagree about a sale.
Who can do it
Looking a sale up needs the view transactions permission; refunding and voiding need modify transactions, which store staff and managers have by default. Approving a void at the register needs Approve Register Overrides, which admins and store managers have by default. All actions are recorded against the register and the cashier.