Refund Overview
Process refunds for payments directly from the Square Point of Sale app or your online Square Dashboard.
Refunds processed through square on a mobile device must be requested and completed within one year of the original transaction. Payments refunded via your online Square Dashboard can be refunded within one year of the original transaction date.
Once this window has passed, you must issue refunds outside of Square.
When you issue a refund, your customer will be refunded their full or partial purchase amount, depending on the request.
An employee’s ability to process refunds is determined by their role and permissions.
Refunds Work
Refund Process
Once a refund is initiated, Square will debit the amount of the transactions, and will credit the full purchase amount back to your customer’s card.
The same process applies for partial refunds. The amount you are debited will be proportional to the partial refund amount requested.
You will receive email notifications once a refund is requested as well as when a refund is completed.
Where will the funds or refund come from?
How you are charged for refunds depends on your transfer schedule.
If you receive automatic nightly transfers, your Square account balance will be used to cover the amount of the refund and your bank account will be debited for any remaining amount needed. For example, if you have £20 in your Square account balance, Square would take the £20 from your Square account balance and then debit your bank account for the remaining £5 to repay your customer. This activity will be reflected in your Transfer Reports on the working day you processed the refund. Note: There may be instances where your bank account is debited upon initiating a refund, even if you have funds in your balance and automatic transfers set up.
If you have a manual transfer schedule, Square may debit funds from your bank account even if you have a sufficient Square account balance to cover the refund amounts. This will happen when a refund is requested for a payment taken on a prior day. For example, if you have £20 in your Square account balance, but the refund was requested a few days after the original payment was taken, Square will debit your bank account for £25 to repay your customer.
Refund Timeline
Square typically takes two to seven working days to process a refund. Once the refund is processed and sent to your customer’s card issuing bank, it can take another two to seven working days (depending on the bank’s processing speeds) for the refund to post to the customer’s account. In total it can take 9-14 working days for your customer to receive their refund.
Payments processed on Square Online are only eligible to refund within one year.
Note: Refund requests that aren’t covered by your Square balance may not be approved, even if requested within the appropriate time frame.
Refund Policy
Customise your refund and return policy from the Receipt settings in your online Square Dashboard. Your policy appears on email, text and printed receipts. If a return policy is absent, it’s assumed there’s no policy. Be sure to clearly state if you don’t offer refunds or warranties.
Note: All major card companies allow cardholders to dispute a payment if a customer can demonstrate that they didn’t receive the purchased product or service. Learn how to protect yourself against chargebacks.
Learn how to process a refund from your Point of Sale app or online Square Dashboard.
Refund Reporting
Reporting details for your refunds can be found in both the Transactions and Balance sections of your Square Dashboard or Square Point of Sale app.
Balance
To help reconcile refunds with the transfers sent to your bank account, check your transfer reports by selecting Balance > Transfer Reports from your online Square Dashboard.
When you issue a refund, the deduction of the refund from the overall amount transferred to your bank account is reflected under the line item Returns or Refunds by Amount.
Transactions
You can find the information for individual payments and refunds under Transactions in either your online Square Dashboard, or within the Square Point of Sale app.
When you process a refund, it will appear as an additional, separate transaction in your reporting. If you select either the original payment transaction or the refund transaction, you will be able to view both the refund and payment information.
