Refund a payment

Handle refunds from the original booking so the payment history and invoice balance stay accurate. A payment made through Stripe has its own card refund action; the manual refund form below is for money returned outside Stripe.

Refund a Stripe card payment

1. Open the booking and find the original Stripe payment in Financials → Payment History.
2. Choose Refund on that payment. Review the available amount and whether you are settling a refund already owed or issuing an additional goodwill refund.
3. Enter the audit reason, confirm an additional goodwill refund if applicable, and submit.
4. Check the refund status in payment history. It updates when Stripe confirms the refund; your client's card provider may take a few days to show the money.

Do not use Record Refund to represent a Stripe card refund. If the original Stripe account is disconnected, reconnect it or contact support before trying to refund through Barkway.

See Set up card payments for Stripe setup and payment availability.

Booking request deposit refunds

Before a request is accepted, Barkway automatically starts a full card refund if the request is rejected, expires, becomes unavailable, or the client cancels it before review. A late payment on an abandoned request is also refunded. These payments may not yet belong to a booking: open Bookings → Requests and review the request instead of looking for a booking invoice.

Check the refund status on the request:

• Pending: Barkway is checking or completing the refund; it is not yet confirmed as returned money.
• Needs attention: the refund has not completed and staff need to review the issue. Follow any account-access guidance shown; contact support if the outcome remains unresolved.
• Failed: an admin can open the request and choose Retry refund when that action is available.
• Refunded: Barkway has confirmed the full refund. The client's card provider may take longer to display it.

Barkway continues checking unresolved request refunds and alerts staff to failures or issues needing attention. Do not record a second manual refund while the original refund outcome is uncertain. A missing Retry refund action can mean an existing attempt is still being checked.

Once the request is accepted, its deposit is applied to the booking invoice. Refund it from that booking's Financials using the card refund steps above. Cancelling a confirmed booking does not automatically issue a card refund. See Deposits and saved cards for the distinction between request refunds and the confirmed-booking cancellation policy.

Record a refund made outside Stripe

1. Open the booking: find the appointment containing the payment you need to refund.
2. Find the payment: in Financials, open Payment History.
3. Choose Refund: use the Refund action on the payment row.
4. Enter the refund details
   • Amount: full or partial. Refunds to client balance use the full remaining amount.
   • Method: Cash, Bank Transfer, Card or Other.
   • Received at: the refund date and time. It defaults to now.
   • Reference: optional, for anything useful to keep with the refund.
5. Save: Barkway records the refund and recalculates the invoice balance.

Refund to client balance

You can return the money as client balance instead of paying it back outside Barkway. This:

• records a refund against the invoice;
• credits the client's balance; and
• refunds the full remaining amount of that payment.

What changes after you save

• The refund appears in Payment History.
• The remaining balance updates immediately.
• A Paid invoice can move back to Partial or Unpaid depending on the amount refunded.

Useful details

• Use the refund method that matches how you are actually returning the money.
• Use Reference for context such as Cancelled - refunded by bank transfer.
• Deposits are refunded from the same Payment History area.