Process a refund or exchange with Square for Retail
About returns and exchanges
With Square for Retail, you can process a refund or an exchange through the Square Retail POS app on an itemized basis. If your customer finds something they would like instead, you can process the difference on the spot.
Before you begin
You can refund or exchange transactions from the Square Retail POS app and on your Square Dashboard. You also have the option to issue a refund to a Square gift card or eGift card.
When you process an exchange, the cart total will either be positive, negative, or even depending on the price of the replacement item.
If the new item is more, you can collect payment with any of the standard payment methods.
If the replacement item is the same price as the returned item, you can process an even exchange.
Processing an exchange may have the following effects on your reporting.
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 debit the remaining amount from your linked bank account.
You have three options to issue a refund or process an exchange from your Retail POS.
Process a return or exchange for a previous transaction
Square Retail POS app
- Open your Retail POS 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 Retail POS 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 Retail POS 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.
Learn how to Set up and order gift cards.
Process a refund for a previous transaction
You can only refund transactions from the Square Dashboard — exchanges cannot be processed from the Dashboard.
Square Dashboard
Sign in to your Square Dashboard > then go to Reports > 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
Unlinked Refunds for Retail are refunds that are not linked to an earlier payment made with your Square POS. Square for Retail Subscribers can issue refunds to a different payment method than the one initially used to make the payment. This is particularly useful to:
Issue refunds for customers who do not have their item receipt.
Honor your return policy by refunding payments that were processed on your previous point of sale.
Process refunds for sales you made through another payment processor or channel, like your website.
You can issue an unlinked refund from your Square Register, Square Terminal, Square Stand, or iOS device. To do so:
Open your Retail POS app, tap Transactions.
Tap Unlinked refunds.
Enter the amount you wish to refund and a detailed description of the item.
Tap Next.
Choose a refund method, enter details, and select a reason for refund in the dropdown 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 disabled by default.
View refunds and exchanges
- Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Reporting > 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.
Refunded transactions will have a yellow (←) on the transaction. To view from the Square Point of Sale or Square Retail POS apps:
- Tap Transactions.
- Locate the refund you’re interested in seeing transaction details for.
- You can view the refund reason, amount, date, time, and cashier who processed the refund.