Refund a payment
If enabled on your account, you're able to process a refund for a collected payment via the payment's record within your dashboard.
The ability to process your own refunds is enabled on a case-by-case basis subject to meeting certain requirements. If you would like to have this feature enabled, please submit your request here.
Payments can be refunded once they have been marked as confirmed, and you can refund the payment in full or specify a partial amount.
How refunds work
In order to refund a payment, you need to have enough confirmed balance to cover the refund amount. If you refund a payment, this will be deducted confirmed balance and you will see it as a debit in your payouts. If you do not have enough confirmed balance you will not be able to refund payments.
How to refund a payment on the dashboard
There are two ways to refund a payment on the dashboard:
Via the payments tab
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Click on the payments tab and click on payments
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Locate the payment in the list and open its individual record by clicking on it
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On the individual payment page, click on the three dots in the top right corner
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Click Refund payment
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Enter the amount you would like to refund (up to the full amount of that payment)
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Enter a reference (this will appear as part of the reference on your customer’s bank statement)
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Click Refund payment
Via the individual customer record
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If you're currently on the customer's individual record, scroll down to the payments section
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Then click on the arrow under Details next to the payment you wish to cancel
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On the individual payment page, click on the three dots in the top right corner
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Click Refund payment
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Enter the amount you would like to refund (up to the full amount of that payment)
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Enter a reference (this will appear as part of the reference on your customer’s bank statement)
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Click Refund payment
The customer will typically receive the refund within 1-2 working days.
Refund safety
Funds processed through the bank debit network do not settle immediately. Although rare, there can be instances where a payment is initially marked as successful by the paying bank, only to be subsequently marked as having failed (late failure payments).
For this reason, we strongly recommend that payments are not refunded within 7 days of being charged. This allows sufficient time for the payment to be settled into your bank account, ensuring that it was successfully collected and protecting you from refunding unreceived funds.
A 7-day refund restriction is imposed on payments by default, however you may opt-out of this safety feature by contacting our support team.
Payments refunded through GoCardless are sent to the customer using the Faster Payment method. The refunded amount will be deducted from the available balance on your account. In some cases, your account may go into a negative balance which will be cleared from your next collected payments
Please note: As refunds are not processed through the Direct Debit scheme, customers are still able to charge back these funds if they were to file an indemnity claim with their bank. This means that the customer can technically get the money back twice.
Available amounts for refunds
Your available refund amount can be found by going to Settings, clicking on Company Info and then scrolling down to Available amounts for refunds. These are the total amounts that are available for you to issue refunds per currency. These amounts will change based on the flow of transactions through your account.
Going forward you will only be able to process refunds up to the total value of your available refund amount in each currency. If your available refund amount does not cover the amount you wish to refund, then you will need to wait until you have sufficient funds in your available refund amount.
Calculating when you will have an available balance
For Bacs payments, a payment is considered confirmed one working day after the chargedate. Note that this timing will change depending on the scheme that the payment is collected in. Please see all payment timings here.
A payment will change to confirmed around midday and will stay in this status for 1 working day. While the payment is in this status, you can use the amount to refund any other payment on your GoCardless account.
For example, you collect Payment A from your customer for £50. However, once it is paid out you do not have enough funds to cover the refund amount. You are collecting Payment B for £100 the next week. When Payment B is confirmed, you will be able to use part of the £100 to cover the refund amount of Payment A.