Refunding an order
Refund a whole order or just selected line items from the order page. Refunds reverse the customer's payment through Stripe, void anything that was issued (gift cards, tickets, vouchers, bookings), free up booking and event capacity, recredit any gift-card balance used to pay, and cancel memberships — and the 3% platform fee is reversed automatically.
Refunding an order
To refund a sale, open it in Orders and click Refund. You can refund the whole order or pick specific line items. Zillo reverses the customer's payment through Stripe, voids whatever was issued (gift cards, tickets, vouchers, booking confirmations), frees up any booking or event capacity that was held, recredits any gift-card balance the customer used to pay, and cancels any membership that came with the order. The 3% platform fee is reversed proportionally, so refunding never costs you extra.
How to run a refund
- Open the order. Go to Orders and click the order you want to refund.
- Click "Refund". The button is in the top-right of the order page.
- Choose the scope. Select Full refund for the whole order, or tick individual line items for a partial refund.
- Add a reason (optional). This is for your own records — staff-visible only. Your customer never sees it.
- Confirm. The refund processes immediately and the customer is emailed a refund confirmation.
Once it's done, the order status flips to Refunded (if you refunded everything) or Partially refunded (if some items are still active). A row appears in the order's refund history showing the amount, who issued it, and when — and you can refund again later if needed (for example, refund line A today and line B next week).
Partial refunds are pro-rated correctly. If a line is part of a discounted order, or the customer paid a pass-through service fee, Zillo works out that line's fair share of the total — so the customer gets back the right amount, not the full sticker price.
What gets voided
When you refund an item, Zillo voids whatever was issued for it so the customer can't keep using it:
- Gift cards — the code stops accepting redemptions. Any promotional bonus credit on the card is forfeited; only the amount the customer actually paid is refunded.
- Tickets — the QR code is rejected if it's scanned at the door, and the seat is released back to the event so it can be sold again.
- Vouchers — same as tickets: the code is rejected when scanned.
- Bookings (appointments & reservations) — the booking is cancelled and its time slot or seat capacity is freed, so someone else can book it. If you run a waitlist, the freed-up spot can be picked up automatically.
- Memberships — the subscription is cancelled immediately and the member loses access right away.
- Physical products — the reserved stock is returned to inventory.
Voiding is one-way. Once a gift card or ticket is voided by a refund, it stays voided — even if you later issue another refund directly inside Stripe. If you need to put a customer "back in", create a fresh order for them (see Creating a manual sale).
Refunds when a gift card was used to pay
If your customer paid partly or fully with a Zillo gift-card balance, that portion is automatically credited back to the same gift card, and the card-paid portion goes back to their card through Stripe.
For example: a $100 order paid with $30 from a gift card and $70 on a credit card. A full refund puts $30 back on the gift card and returns $70 to the credit card — split exactly as it was paid.
If the gift card the customer originally paid with has since been voided (for example, by a separate refund), the balance can't be restored to a dead card. The refund still goes through for the card-paid portion, and the attempted recredit is recorded for your records.
Common issues
The refund shows "pending" for a while — Stripe sometimes takes a few minutes to process a refund, especially on older charges. The order stays in Partially refunded until Stripe confirms. There's nothing for you to do; it resolves on its own.
"Charge not refundable" — the original sale is older than Stripe's refund window (typically around 180 days), or it was already fully refunded outside Zillo. Check the charge in your Stripe dashboard.
You can't refund a pending order — if a payment is still Pending, there's no completed charge to reverse yet. Wait for it to move to Paid, then refund. See Order statuses for what each state means.