Refunds & Reversals

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When you refund an order, MakerVera automatically unwinds the things that order set in motion. If the member paid with a gift card, that balance comes back. If the order included an add-on subscription, it’s cancelled and the capacity it was holding is freed for someone else. You can see exactly what a refund affected right on the order, and step in by hand for the few cases that aren’t reversed automatically.

This guide is for makerspace administrators with billing permissions.

Issuing a refund

Open Transactions, find the payment, and choose Refund on its row. The refund dialog shows you how much can still be refunded before you commit to anything.

In the dialog	What it means
Order total	Everything the member paid for this order — the card payment and any gift-card balance they used
Maximum refundable	What is still left to refund, after earlier refunds (including any that are still being processed)
Card / Gift card	Shown when the order was paid partly with a gift card: how much of the maximum would go back to the gift card and how much to the card

Then choose:

Full refund — refunds the whole maximum. The option shows the amount, for example Full refund ($20.00).
Partial refund — enter any amount greater than zero, up to the maximum. If you type more than the maximum, the dialog tells you the largest amount you can enter.

Reason (required) — pick why you are refunding. MakerVera passes the matching reason on to your payment provider:

Reason	When to use it	What your payment provider receives
Requested by customer	The member asked for their money back	”Requested by customer”
Duplicate charge	The member was charged twice for the same thing	”Duplicate”
Fraudulent	The payment was made without the cardholder’s permission	”Fraudulent”. The dialog warns you that the card will be reported to the provider’s fraud screening
Other	Any other reason, such as a goodwill refund	No reason

If you press Issue Refund without picking one, the dialog asks you to choose a reason.

Note (optional) — up to 1,000 characters of detail for your records. It is saved in your makerspace’s refund history, and on card refunds its first 500 characters are attached to the refund at your payment provider. The member never sees it. Don’t enter card numbers or personal details.
Also refund the platform fee — appears only when MakerVera’s platform fee was charged on the card payment. Leave it on to return the fee along with the refund.
Revoke access (remove event registration) — appears for event tickets. Tick it to remove the member’s registration as part of the refund; leave it unticked to refund the money and keep them registered.

Press Issue Refund once. The dialog locks while the refund is processed and closes when it has gone through. The member is then sent a refund confirmation email for the amount of that refund.

Orders paid partly with a gift card

The maximum covers the whole order, not just the card payment. A partial refund goes back to the gift card first, and only the rest is refunded to the card. For example, on an order paid with a $10 gift card and $10 by card:

You refund	Back to the gift card	Back to the card
$5	$5	$0
$15	$10	$5
$20 (full)	$10	$10

The member always gets back exactly the amount you entered — never more.

Orders paid entirely with a gift card

Orders paid only with gift-card balance can be refunded too. The dialog notes that the refund goes back to the gift card, and the full amount is restored to that card’s balance. No card refund is involved, so this works even when card payments aren’t set up for your makerspace. Revoke access still removes the member’s event registration for gift-card-paid tickets.

Gift card purchases

When the order you are refunding is the purchase of a gift card, you can refund at most what is still unspent on the card it bought. A $50 gift card that has been spent down to $5 can be refunded $5, not $50. The dialog’s maximum already reflects this, and refunds still being processed are taken out of it.

When the refund goes through, the card’s balance drops by the amount you refunded. A card brought down to $0 is cancelled. If the order bought several cards, the oldest card is reduced first. A full refund of the order cancels every card it bought that is still active. This happens on its own: you don’t need to tick anything to cancel the card.

If nothing is left to refund, the dialog says why instead of offering a refund (see When a payment can’t be refunded). An order that bought a gift card together with other products is refunded like any other order.

Membership and subscription payments

Membership payments, recurring donations and product subscriptions can be refunded from Transactions like any other payment, both the first payment and later renewals. Refunding a membership payment returns the money only: the membership stays active. Cancel it separately if the member is leaving.

Payments recorded before this feature was released don’t carry the reference MakerVera needs to refund them. For those, the dialog says “Refund this payment from your payment provider’s dashboard.” Refund it there instead.

Gift cards that were cancelled or expired

When part of an order was paid with a gift card that has since been cancelled or has expired, that share can’t go back onto the old card. MakerVera puts it on a new gift card instead:

Before you press Issue Refund, the dialog tells you that the gift card is cancelled or expired and that its share will go on a new gift card.
The new card holds the gift-card share of the refund, has no expiry date, and belongs to the same recipient as the old card.
The recipient is emailed the new code, in your makerspace’s name, with the usual gift card email.
Everyone in your makerspace who can manage billing gets an email naming the last four characters of the old and new codes.
The new card appears in your gift card list like any other card.

This also happens when a member cancels an event registration and the gift card they paid with is no longer active. Only one new card is ever issued for a refund, even if the refund is retried.

When a payment can’t be refunded

When nothing can be refunded, the dialog says why, in your language, instead of showing the refund form:

Message	Why
This payment has already been fully refunded.	Nothing is left to refund. Refunds still being processed count.
This payment can’t be refunded in its current status.	For example, the payment failed or is still pending.
Refund this payment from your payment provider’s dashboard.	An older membership or subscription payment. See Membership and subscription payments.
Can’t be refunded — the gift card has been used.	A gift card purchase whose card has been spent.
Can’t be refunded — the gift card is no longer active.	A gift card purchase whose card was cancelled or has expired.

A refund only ever happens once

Each time you open the dialog and press Issue Refund, MakerVera treats it as one refund. If the page loses its connection, the payment provider is slow to answer, or you press the button again, MakerVera picks up the same refund rather than starting a second one — the member is never refunded twice. The same protection applies to the automatic refunds MakerVera issues when you cancel an event, and when a member pays for the last slot of a capacity product just after someone else took it (see When the last slot is taken while a member pays).

If another refund on the same payment is still being processed, the dialog says so, and its amount is already taken out of the maximum.

If a refund doesn’t go through

The dialog explains what happened and whether any money moved:

Message	What to do
The server or payment provider couldn’t be reached — the refund may still go through	Press Issue Refund again. MakerVera finishes the original refund instead of issuing a new one. If your payment provider confirms the refund first, MakerVera records it on its own.
The amount is more than what is left to refund	The maximum has been refreshed — enter an amount up to the new maximum.
The payment provider rejected or couldn’t process the refund — nothing was refunded	Press Issue Refund to try again, or check the payment in your payment provider’s dashboard.
Card refunds aren’t available because payments aren’t set up	Connect payments for your makerspace, then try again. Gift-card-only orders don’t need this.
This transaction can’t be refunded, or has already been fully refunded	Nothing is left to refund on this payment (see When a payment can’t be refunded).
The refund is still being processed with its original details	Close and reopen the dialog to see where it stands.

Refunds your payment provider is still processing, or that fail

Some card refunds are not finished the moment you issue them. Until your payment provider confirms the refund, MakerVera keeps it as pending: its amount is set aside (it is taken out of the maximum you can still refund), but the order’s refunded total and status do not change and the member gets no refund email yet. When the provider confirms it, MakerVera records it once and sends the member’s refund email.

If the provider fails or cancels a refund, nothing was returned to the member: MakerVera marks the refund failed, puts the order back to its previous status, and emails everyone in your makerspace who can manage billing, naming the order and the amount. You can then issue the refund again.

A card refund can also fail after it went through (for example, when the member’s card was closed). MakerVera then takes the card amount back out of the order’s refunded total and emails your billing managers. If part of that refund went back to a gift card, the gift card keeps its restored balance and the email says only the card part failed: contact the member, then refund the card part again. Add-ons cancelled and registrations removed by the original refund stay that way.

Refunds that never reached your payment provider

If your payment provider didn’t answer when you issued a refund (for example, it timed out, or you closed the dialog), the refund stays pending. Every 15 minutes MakerVera asks the provider about pending refunds that are at least 15 minutes old. If the provider made the refund, MakerVera records it once, as above. If the provider has no such refund, nothing was returned to the member: MakerVera cancels the pending refund, so its amount no longer counts against what you can refund and the order’s totals stay as they were, and it emails everyone in your makerspace who can manage billing. MakerVera never sends a cancelled refund again on its own. Issue it again yourself if the member should still get it.

Seeing a refund’s progress

The Transactions page shows how each transaction’s latest refund is doing, under its status:

Label	What it means
Refund pending · amount	One or more refunds are still waiting for your payment provider. The amount is set aside until the provider answers.
Refund failed · amount	The latest refund failed at the payment provider. Nothing was refunded; you can issue it again.
Card refund failed · amount	Only the card part of a gift card + card refund failed. The gift card keeps its restored balance; the amount shown is the card part.
Refund not made · amount	Your payment provider never received the refund, so MakerVera cancelled it. The amount can be refunded again.

A successful refund shows no extra label: the status already says Refunded or Partially refunded.

Finishing an unfinished refund

When you open Refund on a transaction with a refund that hasn’t finished, the dialog says so. For a refund you issued, press Try again to finish that same refund: MakerVera sends the original refund again, so the member is never refunded twice. Refunds MakerVera issued on its own (for example, for a cancelled event) finish automatically, so the dialog shows no button for them.

Refunds and disputes from your payment provider’s dashboard

You can also refund a payment directly in your payment provider’s dashboard. MakerVera records it on the order once, for the amount the provider refunded, and sends the member the same refund confirmation email.

A dashboard refund returns card money only, so any gift-card balance used on the order is not restored. Refund from MakerVera when you want the gift card credited back.
Add-on subscriptions on the order are cancelled as usual. Event registrations are kept; remove them by hand if needed.
When a member disputes a payment with their bank, the payment shows as Disputed in Transactions.
Refunds of membership and subscription payments made in the dashboard are recorded too, for payments recorded since MakerVera started keeping their payment reference (see Membership and subscription payments). Older ones are not recorded in MakerVera.

What happens when you refund an order

Once you issue a refund (see above), MakerVera works out how to unwind the order and applies each step on its own:

The order included…	What the refund does
A gift-card payment	Restores the spent balance back to the gift card so the member can use it again
An add-on subscription	Cancels the subscription immediately and frees the capacity or stock it was holding
A card payment	Refunds the card’s share of the amount to the original card
A discount code	The code stays used — discounts are single-use and are not restored automatically (see below)

How the money is split

When an order was paid partly with a gift card and partly by card, MakerVera unwinds the gift card first, then refunds whatever is left to the card. So a member who used a gift card to cover part of a purchase gets that gift-card balance back before any card refund is calculated. Partial refunds follow the same rule, attributed to the specific items being refunded.

Reviewing what a refund affected

Open the order’s detail page after a refund. If the order was refunded, a Refund Reversal Summary appears showing:

Where the money went — how much was restored to a gift card (shown with the card’s last four digits) and how much went back to the card.
What was reversed — each side effect, such as an add-on subscription being cancelled and the number of slots freed, or a gift-card balance being restored. Each line shows whether it completed, was skipped, or failed.

This is a read-only summary for your records — viewing it never moves money.

If something didn’t complete

Occasionally a side effect can’t finish. A gift card that was later cancelled or has expired is not one of these cases: its share goes on a new gift card and the step shows as completed. When a step does fail:

The summary shows that effect as Failed and displays a warning notice at the top.
The money refund itself still went through — a side-effect problem never blocks the refund.
You’ll receive an alert so a person can finish the reversal by hand.

The rest of the reversal still completes — one step failing never stops the others.

Discount codes are single-use

Discount and promo codes are consumed when they’re used and are not automatically reinstated on a refund or cancellation. Members see a short note about this at checkout when they enter a code, and again if they cancel a purchase that used one.

Reinstating a discount for a member

If you need to give a member their discount back — for example, because your makerspace cancelled the class or event they used it on — you can reinstate it manually. This restores one use of that code for that specific member.

Reinstating affects only that member’s use of the code — it doesn’t change the code’s overall limits or make an archived code available again.
If you reinstate the same redemption twice, nothing changes the second time — it’s safe to repeat.

Frequently asked

Does a refund restore a member’s gift-card balance automatically? Yes. If the refunded order was paid in part with a gift card, that balance is credited back to the card with no extra step from you.

What if the gift card was cancelled or has expired since? Its share of the refund goes on a new gift card, emailed to the card’s recipient. The dialog tells you before you refund.

Why can’t I refund the full price of a gift card someone bought? A gift card purchase can only be refunded up to what is still unspent on the card. The spent part has already been used on purchases at your makerspace.

Does refunding a membership payment cancel the membership? No. The member gets their money back and the membership stays active. Cancel it separately if needed.

What happens to an add-on subscription when I refund its order? It’s cancelled right away and the capacity or stock it was holding is released, so the slot becomes available to other members.

Will refunding bring back a used discount code? No. Discount codes are single-use by design. Reinstate one manually only when it’s warranted.

Can I refund an order the member paid for entirely with a gift card? Yes. The amount goes back to the gift card’s balance. No card refund is involved.

I refunded a payment in my payment provider’s dashboard. Will MakerVera know? Yes. The refund appears on the order once, and the member gets a refund confirmation email. Refunding the same payment again from MakerVera only offers what is still left.

I pressed Issue Refund twice — was the member refunded twice? No. Each dialog submits one refund; pressing again only finishes that same refund.

A member was refunded without anyone pressing Refund — why? If a member pays twice for the same purchase, for example from two browser tabs, MakerVera keeps the first payment and refunds the second automatically. The member and everyone who can manage billing get an email, and both the payment and its refund appear on Transactions. See If a member pays twice anyway.

A reversal shows as failed — did the member still get their refund? Yes. The refund always completes. Only the follow-on step (like a gift-card restore) failed, and you’ll be alerted to finish it.