Since Bold Subscriptions V1 processes all subscription orders through its own built-in checkout called the recurring checkout, the payments you receive for your customer's subscriptions will go through the third party payment gateway you have connected within Subscriptions V1. Because of this, you will need to refund them differently than your regular one-time Shopify orders.
It is important to note that when refunding orders through Bold Subscriptions, you will not be able to automatically return the product to your inventory. If you would like Shopify's inventory to reflect this change, please complete the refund and then manually add that product's quantity back into your Shopify inventory count.
Caution
This article is relevant to Bold Subscriptions V1. If you have Bold Subscriptions V2 installed on your store, please visit Refund a Subscription Order in Subscriptions V2.
If you are unsure of which version of Bold Subscriptions that you have currently installed, please visit Identify Your Version of Bold Subscriptions.
Transaction fees are applied differently depending on the payment gateway that's connected to your store, which means that your transaction fee refunds are processed differently as well.
Refunding Orders via Stripe
If you currently have Stripe as your preferred payment gateway, you will receive both our transaction fee and Stripe's transaction fee whenever a customer's order is refunded.
Please visit Stripe's guide to refunding and cancelling payments for more information.
Refunding Orders via Braintree
If you currently have Braintree as your preferred payment gateway, you will receive our transaction fee whenever a customer's order is refunded. We will deduct the fee from your commission owed when charging the credit card attached to the payment gateway.
Please visit Braintree's guide to refunds, voids, and detached credits for more information.
You can otherwise contact Braintree at 1-877-434-2894 or by emailing their support team.
Refunding via All Other Supported Gateways
If you currently have any other gateway as your preferred payment gateway, you will receive our transaction fee by deducting it from the commission owed when your credit card is charged through the payment gateway.
Depending on which payment gateway is connected, there may be different ways of crediting back these charges when refunds are processed.
Please reach out to your payment gateway's support team for more information on their refund and transaction fee policies.
Pro-Tip
Please note that refunding your customer's subscription order will not cancel the subscription. Your customers can access the Manage Subscriptions Page and cancel their subscription at any time (when enabled).
If you want to allow customers to cancel only after a certain amount of orders have processed, please visit Minimum Fulfilled Order Feature in Bold Subscriptions for more information.
To refund a subscription order, please follow the steps below.
Setup
- From the Shopify admin, select Orders.
- Enter the Order Number in the search bar.
- Select More Actions.
- Select Refund - Recurring Order.
- Enter the $ Amount to refund.
- Select Refund on the top right corner.
Partial Refunds
Please follow the steps under Refunding Subscription Orders > Setup.
Then, during step 5, only enter the amount you would like to refund back to the customer.
If you need to cancel a subscription order on your customer's behalf, as well as refund the order, it is important to complete the refund first.
If you cancel the Shopify order first, the order will automatically attempt to refund the order through Shopify's connected payment gateway.
Setup
- From the Shopify admin, select Apps.
- Select Bold Subscriptions V1.
- Select Subscriptions, then Customers.
- Enter the Email Address or your Customers Name to find the order.
- Select Edit.
- Select the ellipsis beside the order you want to adjust.
- Select Cancel Subscription.
- Select Confirm.
Cancelling your customer's subscriptions will keep their information within the Bold Subscriptions V1 app admin. Your customers can be found within Customers when sorting by the Inactive Subscriber status.
Your inactive customers can be reactivated later so they can continue with their subscription.
When a refund is requested through Bold Subscriptions V1, the request is sent over to the payment gateway that's currently connected to your Subscriptions app (Stripe, Braintree, Authorize.Net, etc.). Once received by the payment gateway, it'll be processed by that same payment gateway.
If you need to cancel a subscriber's refund, this will need to be performed within the payment gateway that's currently connected to your Subscriptions app.
If you have incorrectly refunded a subscription order, you may experience an error similar to the screenshot below.
Example
We recommend contacting Shopify's support team before attempting the refund again. This is important if you're using Shopify Payments or Stripe with Shopify for one-time payments and subscriptions.
When experiencing this error while using a different payment gateway, it's likely that the money would not have been withdrawn, but the refund would have still adjusted the status of the order.