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Data Operations
Refunds
When you refund a payment, you are essentially returning funds received from a customer. Refunds can be partial (only a portion of the amount is refunded) or full (the entire amount is refunded).
There are several reasons for refunding a subscription, such as an incorrect charge, cancellation, or unsatisfactory service.
In Chargebee, you can either issue a refund or record offline refunds. For both operations, Credit Notes are generated for the refunds made.
Issuing a Refund
You can issue a refund for paid or partially paid invoices through the web interface or by using the API. To issue a refund through the web interface, open the invoice you want to refund and click the Refund option on the invoice.
A prompt asking you to confirm the refund appears, displaying details of the Credit Notes that will be created for the refund. Click Confirm.
A Refundable Credit Note with details of the refund made will be available in the Credit Notes page.
Classic UI users
You would find the Refund option on the Actions pane, located on the right-side of an invoice.
- This option cannot be used to refund invoices that have been paid offline. You need to manually record such refunds in Chargebee.
- Once you make the refund the amount will be credited to the account that was used for the payment.
- If the refund is being made for a transaction that is not settled, then the transaction will simply be voided. Partial refunds are also not supported for transactions that are yet to be settled.
- Refunds are taken into account as separate transactions, and transaction charges may be applied. However, when a transaction is voided, it is not considered as a separate transaction.
- Refunds can only be made within a specific period of time from the date of the transaction. The period allowed for refund depends on the gateway that was used for the transaction.
- The refund period varies with the payment gateway used to initiate a refund.
Reconciling Offline Refunds
To reconcile the refunds that you have made offline, record them in Chargebee using the Record Refund option.
You can use this option to record refunds that have been made via payment methods other than card and online wallets, which refer to cash, check, bank transfer, and so on. Click Record Refund to provide details of the refund, such as the amount, refund method, refund date, reference number. Provide comments and notes, if any.
You can also record offline refunds using the 'record a refund' API.
Classic UI users
You would find the Record Refund option on the on the Actions pane, located on the right-side of an invoice.
Partial and Full Refunds
You can only refund up to the amount charged on the invoice. That is, you can make one or more partial refunds or a full refund against an invoice until you reach the total amount charged. Chargebee will not let you refund more than what is on the invoice.
Making partial refunds against an invoice in Chargebee is also subject to the associated payment gateway(s) supporting partial refunds.
When refunding an invoice that also includes Promotional Credits, the amount to be returned to the card, and the amount added back to your customer's Promotional Credits balance will be calculated proportionately. Here is an example to illustrate:
Total Invoice Amount: $30 Promotional Credits Adjusted: $10 Card Payment: $20
If you've entered $10 as the amount to be refunded, Chargebee (calculating in proportions) will assume that you want to return 50% of the card payment ($20) to your customer.
Chargebee will use 50% as a marker to refund the Promotional Credits in the invoice as well.
Your refund of $10 will look like this: $10 returned to the card used to make the payment and $5 added back to customer's Promotional Credits balance.
Adding Credits Instead of a Refund
If you want to provide credits to your customer instead of a refund, you could create Credit Notes. This is quite useful in situations where you do not have to refund money to a customer, but you can provide credits that can be applied to the next invoice.
Bulk Refund for Multiple Invoices
Chargebee does not have a direct option to perform bulk refunds for multiple invoices from the Invoices user interface. However, you can achieve this through the following methods:
- Bulk Operations: You can use the Bulk Operations feature to record refunds for multiple invoices at once. This involves importing a CSV file with the invoice details and refund amounts. Navigate to Settings > Import & Export Data > Choose a Bulk Operation > Invoices > Refund Invoices. Download the sample CSV, populate it with the required invoice and refund details, and import the file to process the refunds.
- API Integration: You can integrate with the Chargebee API and programmatically issue refunds for multiple invoices. The Refund an Invoice API endpoint allows you to refund an invoice. You can build a script or application to fetch the required invoices and call this API for each invoice to process the refunds.
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