How to Process a Refund in the circuly Operations Backend?
A typical situation in e-commerce, both regular and subscription, is processing a refund for situations such as cancellations, wrong product, product breakage etc. When you use circuly to manage your subscriptions you can process refunds in a very efficient way. circuly not only takes care of the transactional communication that follows after a refund is processed but enables you to customise the refund value so that you can account for important costs like delivery costs, existing usage etc.
Video Guide
Article Overview
- Payment that can be refunded
- Refund option
- Process for a circuly user
Payments that can be refunded
The refund option can be used to refund recurring payments, one-time transaction payments (such as initial payment or any other one-time payment) and buyout payments. As soon as a payment is created for a payment type (that is recurring, one-time or buyout payment) in the Payments tab, an invoice is created for the payment in the Invoice tab.
IMPORTANT: The refund action is performed on the invoice level and not the payment level.
To differentiate between the different payment types, look at the "Invoice type" column in the "Invoices" tab.
Refund options
You can ONLY refund payments that have been charged in the first place. If a payment has not been charged yet or if the payment is to be charged in the future, the option to refund such a payment will not be available.
As you can see in the image below, the refund button is not available (the button is greyed out) if the payment has not been charged yet.
To check whether or not a payment has been successfully charged, look at the "Paid" column un the "Invoices" tab.
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Important: If you do not see the Paid column in your Invoice List, navigate to the eye icon on the right side of the table and check the box for "Paid" to display it has a column heading in the Invoice List.
Process for a circuly user
Once you've determined the invoice that needs to be refunded, follow the steps mentioned below to process a refund:
- In your circuly Operations Backend > Go to the Invoices tab.
- Click on the invoice that needs to be refunded.
Note: Please click on the coloured text under the ID column to open the invoice and access the invoice actions.
- In the Invoice window > Click on the REFUND INVOICE button to access the refund options.
- In the Refund Order window select and fill the fields that apply to the refund and press the REFUND button.
- Double check the refund amount - the refund amount is displayed on the REFUND button as REFUND x,xx €.
Quick guide on different options in the Refund Order window:
- Full refund: Toggle on the "Full refund" option if you want to refund the entire amount that the customer has paid to you till now including all products under the same connected customer email.
- Use custom value: As the name suggests, the "Use custom value" toggle allows you to fill in an amount of your choice. This is particularly handy when you want to deduct some incurred costs from the final refund amount such as repair and/or delivery costs. The "Use custom value" option also allows you to better describe what the refund is for and you can also add VAT rates (if required).
- Alternatively, if there are multiple products under the same connected customer email, you can select the product(s) by hovering over the box in the product field and clicking on it, till it shows a grey check mark. In this case, the final refund amount will be displayed on the REFUND button as REFUND X,xx €.
- In the Message to customer field you can add a quick note that will be displayed in the invoice sent automatically to the customer receiving the refund via email.
Note: The input value in the Message to customer field is only included in the email if you've added the required email variable, that is {{description}}, in the Refund Invoice email template.