Refunding and Cancelling Orders
Sometimes orders need to be refunded or cancelled — whether due to event changes, customer requests, or duplicate purchases. Hi.Events supports full and partial refunds on paid orders.
How the refund works depends on how the order was paid:
- Stripe orders — the money is returned to the buyer’s original payment method via Stripe.
- Offline orders that have been marked as paid — you can record a refund, which updates your reporting and statistics, but you’ll need to return the money to the customer yourself outside Hi.Events.
Free orders, manually created orders, and offline orders still awaiting payment can be cancelled, but there is no refund to process or record for them.
How to Refund an Order
- Open your event and go to Orders
- Open the ⋮ menu on the order you want to refund
- Click Refund order
Refund Options
The refund dialog shows:
- Order Total — the original order amount
- Already Refunded — any previous refunds on this order
- Available to Refund — the remaining amount that can be refunded
You can enter any amount up to the available balance, allowing for partial refunds (e.g. refunding one ticket from a multi-ticket order).
Additional Options
- Send refund notification email — the customer receives an email confirming the refund
- Also cancel this order — cancels all products in the order and releases them back to the pool. This option is hidden if the order is already cancelled.
Stripe Refunds Take a Moment to Complete
When you submit a refund on a Stripe order, Hi.Events sends the request to Stripe and immediately marks the order as Refund pending — you’ll see “Your refund is processing.”
The final state (Refunded, Partially refunded or Refund failed) is only recorded once Stripe confirms the refund, which can take a short while. Until then you can’t start another refund on the same order.
Offline refunds are different: since no money moves through Hi.Events, the refund is recorded instantly and the order goes straight to Refunded or Partially refunded. The dialog’s confirm button reads Record Refund for offline orders, and a note reminds you that you’ll need to return the payment to the customer yourself.
Cancelling an Order
Open the ⋮ menu on the order and choose Cancel order. If the order is refundable, the dialog includes an Also refund this order checkbox which is ticked by default — leaving it ticked issues a full refund at the same time as the cancellation. Untick it if you want to cancel without refunding.
Cancelling an order does more than change its status. It also:
- Cancels every attendee on the order and voids their tickets
- Returns the tickets to the available pool, restoring sold quantities and any shared capacity usage
- Reverts related waitlist offers
- Sends an order-cancelled email to the buyer — this is sent whether or not you asked to notify them
- Triggers an order-cancelled webhook, if you have one set up
Important Notes
- Stripe refunds return to the buyer’s original payment method. Offline refunds only update your reporting — returning the money is up to you.
- If you issue a partial refund without cancelling, the order stays active and the remaining tickets are still valid.
- A cancelled order cannot be reactivated — if the buyer wants to return, they’ll need to place a new order. Individual attendees can be restored though: use the Activate action on the Attendees page to set a cancelled attendee back to Active.
- Free orders can be cancelled but there is no monetary refund to process.