Process a return, exchange or unlinked refund
About returns and exchanges
Process refunds, returns and exchanges to resolve customer issues.
Refund: Give your customer their money back for a product.
Return: Give your customer their money back for a product and receive the product back for your inventory.
Exchange: Return a product and give your customer a different product in its place.
Unlinked refunds: Refunds that are not linked to an earlier payment made with your point of sale. Use unlinked refunds to issue refunds for customers without a receipt or payments processed through another payment processor or channel.
Before you begin
You can do the following from your Square POS app or Square Retail POS:
Process a return. Available with a Square for Retail Plus or Premium subscription.
Process an exchange.
Process an unlinked refund.
You can also issue a refund for a previous transaction that is linked to an earlier payment made through your Square POS. Learn how to manage customer refunds.
You have the option to issue a refund to a Square gift card or eGift card. Note: Square does not charge load fees when you issue refunds to gift cards. Learn how to issue refund to gift cards.
Exchanges won’t reflect on your Square Transfer Summary or on accounting software like QuickBooks.
Your customer’s refund credit is initially drawn from your Square balance. If you don’t have a balance available in your Square account to cover the refund, we will debit the remaining amount from your linked bank account.
Depending on the price of the replacement item, the cart total will either be positive, negative or even.
If the replacement item is less than the returned item, you can issue a refund to your customer’s card for the difference.
If the new item is more, collect payment with any of the standard payment methods.
If the replacement item is the same price as the returned item, tap Even exchange to close out the transaction.
Process a return or exchange for a previous transaction
From the Square POS app with retail mode enabled or from the Square Retail POS app:
- Open your point of sale app, then tap Transactions.
- Locate the original transaction by either swiping your customer’s card or searching for the receipt number.
- Tap Return or Exchange.
- Select item(s) to restock or Skip this step > tap Next.
- You can either issue a refund or search your item library to add additional items to the cart. The cart amount will automatically adjust, calculating the difference between the original and replacement items.
- Open your point of sale app, tap Customers.
- Find your customer by searching for their name.
- Scroll down to Transactions > tap the transaction to bring up the details page.
- Select Return or Exchange.
- Select item(s) to restock or Skip this step > tap Next.
- Tap Refund or add additional items to update your cart and proceed through the checkout flow.
- Open your point of sale app, then tap Transactions.
- Search the receipt number or full debit/credit card number to find the transaction.
- Tap the transaction you wish to refund.
- Select item(s) to refund > tap Return or Exchange.
- Select item(s) to restock or Skip restock.
- Tap Add Gift Card or Swipe, then swipe or enter the gift card number.
- Tap Refund.
Store credit refunds aren’t charged load fees. Learn how to set up and order gift cards.
Process a refund for a previous transaction
Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Orders & payments (or Invoices & Payments or Payments) > Orders > Transactions.
Click on the payment you’d like to refund, then click (•••) > Issue refund.
Choose to:
Refund items: Select items to refund, then click Refund items.
Refund amount: Enter the amount you’d like to refund and the reason you’re refunding the payment, then click Issue refund.
Process an unlinked refund
Open your Point of Sale app, tap Transactions.
Tap Unlinked refunds to be directed to Set up unlinked refunds.
Enter value to Amount to refund and information in Describe item(s) in detail.
Tap Next to proceed to Issue refund method
Choose a refund method and enter details > Select a reason for refund in the drop-down menu.
Tap Refund.
Access to unlinked refunds can be managed through your team permission on Square Dashboard separately from general refund access. Access to unlinked refunds is turned off by default.
View refunds and exchanges
- Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Orders & payments (or Invoices & Payments or Payments) > Orders > Transactions.
- Click the All Types drop-down menu and click Refunds or Exchanges.
- Apply additional filters as needed.
- Click the transaction to view the refund reason, amount, date, time, and cashier who processed the refund.