Refund a table booking

Refund a table payment from the reservation itself, whether the guest paid at checkout or through a deposit request. Refunds can be full or partial, and the money goes back to the guest's original payment method.

Refund a payment

1. Go to Tables and open the event.
2. Click the reservation, then click Details on its card.
3. Open the Payments tab and click Refund on the payment.
4. Choose Full refund, or Partial refund and enter the Amount. An amount over what's left to refund turns the Up to line red, and the refund button stays off until you lower it.
5. Add a Reason if you like.
6. Click the refund button, which shows the amount (for example Refund $150), then click it again to confirm.

If the checkout had several tables or add-ons, Refund order opens instead. Enter an amount for each item, then click the refund button, which shows the total, and confirm.

A package has its own Refund button, on the package in the reservation's Details and under Package on the Payments tab. Refunding it leaves the table's payment as it is, and refunding the table leaves the package. A package refunded in full goes back on sale.

The guest gets a "Your refund for …" email. A refund never changes the reservation's status: a canceled reservation stays Canceled, and a live one keeps its place on the floor. Once everything paid is refunded, the deposit badge reads Deposit refunded. Each refund is listed under Refunds on the Payments tab.

At the top of the Payments tab, Charged is everything the guest paid, fees included. Paid is what you hold for the table: its price and tax, less refunds, without the fees. It is the same amount the table card shows as paid. If a payment can't be read from Stripe, the tab says so: refresh to try again.

Cancel and refund

When you cancel a reservation that still has money on it, the cancel window offers Refund with the amount left to refund, turned off. Under it, the window says how much of what the guest paid is fees, which stay paid.

1. Click the reservation's table, click Details on its card, then click Cancel reservation near the bottom.
2. Turn Refund on to give the money back in the same step, or leave it off to cancel without refunding.
3. Click Cancel and refund (or Cancel reservation when the refund is off).

The refund covers every payment on the reservation (its checkout, paid deposit requests, and its package), up to what your venue received for each. The reservation is canceled only once the refund has gone through. If a refund fails, nothing is canceled and the window says why.

The guest gets one email: the cancellation, saying "Your refund of $… is on its way." Canceled without a refund, the email says nothing about money.

How much you can refund

The most you can refund on a payment is what your venue received for it: the amount paid minus the VenueStack fee and the Stripe fee. Earlier refunds come off it, and the refund window shows what is left as Left to refund.

• If the guest paid the fees, a full refund returns the table, add-ons, and tax, but not the fees.
• If your venue covered the fees, the guest gets back a little less than they paid.
• Your venue pays back exactly the amount refunded, from your Stripe balance.
• When one checkout covers several tables, each table can get back up to its share of the payment.

See Who pays fees, and tax.

Good to know

• Refunds cannot be undone.
• Canceling with Refund turned off leaves the money paid. You can still refund it later from the Payments tab.
• Roles that can't refund see how much is still paid in the cancel window, with no Refund option.
• Refunds show on the deposit badge and in the amounts, never in the status. Undoing an arrival puts a reservation back to Seated, refunded or not.
• Reopening a canceled reservation puts it back on its table as Seated if nobody has taken it since, or on the Unseated list as Approved if someone has. A canceled request that never had a table and paid nothing comes back Pending. The Log says where it went.
• A refund made in your Stripe dashboard is recorded on the booking within a few minutes. A lost card dispute is recorded the same way.
• If Stripe does not confirm a refund straight away, it shows as Pending under Refunds on the Payments tab and settles by itself within 20 minutes. Do not refund it again.
• Ticket refunds follow the same fee rules. See Refund a ticket order.