Refund to Gift Card in the Point of Sale App
With Square physical or eGift Cards, you can process returns and provide your customers with store credits. Offering a refund to an eGift Cards helps you:
Hold on to your earnings: Keep the money that’s already been spent at your business when you refund to a free eGift Card, right from your point of sale.
Keep customers coming back: Make it simple for them to use their eGift Card in-store or online.
Grow your sales: Gift card customers are likely to spend more on your business. Plus, digital eGift Cards are easily reloadable in-store or online for future sales.
Note: Square Gift Cards have a $2,000 maximum load limit. You cannot refund more than $2,000 to a gift card, including the existing balance on the card. Additionally, gift cards are not available for refunding split-tender transactions or Square Invoices.
Issuing a Refund to a Gift Card
If you’d like to issue a customer store credit, you can issue a refund to a Square Gift Cards from compatible iOS and Android devices using Square Point of Sale, Square for Retail and Square Appointments. Refunds can be issued from a physical gift card by swiping or manually entering the 16 digits. eGift cards can also be used if you key in the 16 digits.
Refund to a physical Gift Card
Open the navigation menu and tap Transactions.
Search the receipt number or the payment card number to find the transaction.
Tap the transaction you want to refund and select Issue Refund.
Select the items you want to refund and choose to restock the returned items by tapping Refund.
Tap Add Gift Card or Swipe. You can then swipe the gift card, take a photo of the gift card QR code or barcode with your device’s camera, scan the gift card barcode with a barcode scanner, or manually enter the gift card number.
Tap Refund.
Refund to an eGift Card
Open the navigation menu and tap Transactions.
Enter the receipt number or the payment card number in the search bar to find the transaction.
Tap the transaction you want to refund and select Issue Refund.
Select the items or the amount you want to refund and tap Next.
Under Refund To, select Gift Card > Create eGift Card.
Enter the customer’s email address in the box. This will autofill if you have already added your customer’s email to their profile in your customer directory. On the customer-facing screen, your customer can edit the email address or enter in a new email, then tap Done.
Confirm the email address with your customer, then tap Done.
On the Refund Complete window, tap Done.
After issuing a refund to an eGift Card from your point of sale, your customer will receive an email with their eGift Card so they can use their store credit the next time they shop with you in person or online.
Note: 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.
Reporting
Refunds made to Gift Cards will be recorded in the Sales Summary Report and the Gift Card Summary Report on the Square Dashboard. The total collected will be refunded to the gift card, and fees will not be removed from the net total. You can see the amount refunded to gift cards under the ‘Gift Card’ section in the Total Collected section of the Sales Summary Report.
Note: Any paid tips will not be returned to the gift card.
Currently, refunds show up in the Transfer report on the Dashboard and in the Square POS app. Since refunds to Gift Cards do not move money between you and your customer, any refund made to Gift Cards will not show up on the report.