How do I issue a refund beyond 120 days?

[RestoreManager]

How does Square suggest that I refund a customer for a credit card purchase after 120 days?

Why doesn't square support credit card refunds after 120 days?

If the purchase was a cash purchase can I refund after 120 days?

[VanKalkerFarms · Accepted solution]

There isn't anything you can do in the Square app specifically past 120 days.  What I would recommend is keeping good documentation of the process.  Document the Square Transaction number in question and a picture or copy of the receipt, The item or amount being refunded, the check number with a picture of it, the day it was given or mailed to the customer, the day it was cashed.  Have the customer sign a short form stating that they are aware they are receiving a check back for a credit card purchase and a copy of their driver's license.  offering a refund more than 4 months after a purchase is being very lenient.

[papercraftcon]

I'm running into the same issues. we have a craft show and accept payment got well over 120 days. Once a while, vendors cancel and there's no way for me to refund via square after 120 days and I've to pay the square fee becuase I'm issuing a check instead of a credit card refund.

[crystalimages]

My question is sort of related here. I understand not being able to refund the money back from square after 120 days. This makes me rethink my refund policy... However, what I really need is a way to log the refund within square and just note the check number written for it. I need this for several reasons. I prefer to keep my records logged in one place as much as possible. We also pay commission on photos sold to the photographer who took them and to the resort we are contracted with. When a refund happens, we adjust commission. I now have to log this instance in other records and hope it makes sense somehow. If the refund option were still there and it allowed for a manual refund instead of from square, we could log this better. There isn't, as far as I'm aware, a way to log a negative transaction for the day it was refunded? Even if we could refund to a gift card after 120 days, that would be a start.

Any suggestions?

[EJ_]

Thanks for sharing @crystalimages

While there's not a way to edit a transaction once it's completed to note that it was manually refunded after the 120 day time frame, I definitely agree this would help with reporting whenever these instances come up. 

Unfortunately, this isn't something that's on our road map at the moment, so any documentation surrounding negative transactions or manual refunds will need to be done outside of Square. I know that's not ideal, especially when doing your annual reporting, but hopefully one of your fellow sellers can chime in with their best practice for this. 

[jampff]

I also think that a refund beyond 120 days is a legitimate need.

I allow customers to pay for my services 6 months in advance. This means that when the unexpected happens, there are cases (like today) I need to issue a partial refund for a session that I had to cancel unexpectedly. It doesn't happen often, but life is life.

Just want to add my voice.

Just curious, is there a reason that refunds past 120 days are not good for Square?

[puka]

Hey @jampff - Thanks for sharing your feedback here. To provide some context, refunds longer than 120 days have a high probability of error due to closed bank accounts or the transaction no longer being in the processors system. We'll update this thread let you know if there are any changes on this front.

[crystalimages]

Again, just the ability to log a refund transaction against a particular sale after the 120 days. Doesn't have to refund via square, just a way to log that a specific transaction was refunded. This could prevent a customer from getting refunded more than once for the same transaction.

[ArcLynn]

My company is a wholesale trade supplier and almost everything we sale has at least a 1 year mfg. warranty.  Some products from certain supply product lines have a lifetime warranty.  This means I have to issue a credit memo via my Quickbooks software and then refund that amount back to the customer on the credit card they paid with.  We have some government customers that only do business with credit cards, so refunds have to be issued back to the government agency's credit card regardless of this 120 day policy.  They will not take a check or cash refund.  We also just switched everything over to Square a couple of weeks ago so any future credit memos issued that I need to refund to a customer, the original charge will not show since it was on our previous merchant account.  This type of system or policy isn't going to work for my business at all. 

[grantsandrew]

I am a huge fan of Square, but just every once in a while, Square seems like tech bros instead of business people. There are a thousand scenarios that require refund flexibility but since we can't think of any, we just did it this way. We think it's better for you - toodles!! 

[dsclilruth]

This reply was created from merging an existing thread: Refund Question: Can it go based off when the service event is instead of payment date?

Right now Square is set to only refund customers within 120 days of purchase but can we do 120 days within tour date because that is the date of service? We have different tours and they buy in advanced for the tour/trip to take and that is the day we would like to have them start on with the refund policy. Thanks!

[Helen]

Hey again @dsclilruth! I've merged your post to this thread where we've shared more information about why refunds cannot be processed after 120 days of the payment date. I'll share your interest in starting the 120 days from the date of an event with the Payments team. Thanks for sharing this example! 

[TCIAccounting]

We allow students to prepay for training in the future.  A student purchased a training course through our Square Online Store in Mar 2019.  Square policy states refunds NOT purchased on a mobile device can be refunded up to a year.  Why does the Square Dashboard not allow me to process refund at purchase +150 days??

[nika]

Hey @TCIAccounting. I merged your question to this thread that explains more about our refund policy outside of 120 days of the the payment date. Please feel free to reach back out if any other questions come up.