Cancelling a reservation
- Open the reservation.
- More actions → Cancel reservation.
- Read the confirmation — it tells you the refund before you commit.
- Cancel reservation.
Cancel reservation RES-7K4M? This releases its capacity. Refund per policy: 100% ($300.00)That figure is computed from the policy attached to this reservation’s experience, against the actual visit time, right now. It is what will move.
Overriding the refund
Sometimes the policy’s answer isn’t the right one — a guest cancels inside the no-refund window with a genuinely good reason, or kept the room an extra hour and shouldn’t get everything back. When the guest has paid anything (add-ons included), the confirmation offers Override the refund amount: set any amount from $0 up to what the guest has paid, and give a reason (required). The override is deliberately accountable: the amount, the policy’s original answer, your name, and your reason all land on the reservation’s timeline. Guests can never override a refund — this exists only in the admin.Where the percentage comes from
Exactly one set of rules applies: the experience’s custom rules if it has them, otherwise your shop policy (Settings → Policies). The reservation’s own page states the applicable rules in its Details card, so you never have to work this out from Settings. Riserva then applies the most generous refund step that matches the notice given. With less notice than any step — or once the visit has started, or under all sales final — the refund is 0%. See Set your cancellation policy.What actually gets refunded
The percentage applies to everything the guest paid, add-ons included. A “100% refund” that left the cheese pairing unrefunded wouldn’t be a 100% refund. The money goes back through Shopify as a real refund against the original order, to the original payment method. A partial policy refund is a partial order refund. When the money sits on more than one order — a party grew and paid the extra guests through a payment link, or a balance was settled at the register — the refund walks every order that holds the reservation’s money, newest first, taking from each what it still holds until the amount is met. An order already refunded to zero is skipped. The reservation page lists each order with what it still holds, and one Refunded row with the total. A reservation with no Shopify order refunds nothing — there’s nothing to refund. That’s the normal case for a phone reservation your team took and never collected on.Shrinking a party uses the same schedule
Removing guests from a paid reservation is a partial cancellation, and it follows this exact schedule: the removed guests’ share of the payment is refunded at whatever percentage the policy grants right now. A party that shrinks at the door under a “no refund within 24 hours” policy gets nothing back for the dropped seats — the withheld amount stays on the order, and both the timeline and the reservation’s Payment card record it. Staff can go beyond the policy deliberately: the reservation’s Edit page always offers a full refund (recorded as an override on the timeline), and Shopify POS check-in offers it only if you’ve allowed it in Settings → Policies → Refund overrides.Everything else cancelling does
In one action, Riserva also:- Releases the capacity — the seat, table or venue goes back on sale.
- Cancels any scheduled charge so a dead reservation can’t be billed later.
- Forgives any unbilled balance from added guests.
- Voids any open payment link, so a guest can’t pay an invoice for a reservation that no longer exists.
- Marks purchased add-ons refunded, since the one order refund covered them.
- Emails the guest the cancellation, with the refund amount when money is moving. A $0 cancellation says nothing about refunds at all.
- Writes a staff note on the reservation recording the policy applied.
When something doesn’t go through
Riserva never fails quietly. If the payment link can’t be voided:The open payment link could not be voided (…) — delete the draft order in Shopify admin.Do that, or the guest could still pay it. If the refund doesn’t execute, the cancellation still stands, the timeline records it as pending — “Refund of 150.00** callout. Press Retry refund to send it again from Riserva, or, if you issued it from the Shopify order yourself, Mark handled in Shopify so the record agrees. If the gateway only allows part of it:
The gateway allowed 50.00 of the 75.00 refund — verify in Shopify.Whatever didn’t go back lands in the same Refund owed callout. Always check the reservation’s timeline after a cancellation you expected money to move on.