Cancel and refund a booking in Venue Manager

In this video, you'll learn how to refund and cancel a booking in Venue Manager.

We'll look at when to issue a refund, when to cancel without refunding, how to process full or partial refunds, and what happens after a booking is canceled.

By the end, you'll understand how to handle cancellations correctly while keeping reporting and capacity accurate.

Before taking action, pause and check two things, your venue's refund policy and the booking's payment status. If the guest has paid and is entitled to money back, process the refund first. If the guest is not entitled to a refund, you can cancel the booking without refunding.

If payment was made by gift card or if you would like to honor a refund while keeping funds within your business, refunding gift card instead of returning funds to the original payment method. This allows the guest to reuse the value on a future purchase and is our recommended recommended method provided it aligns with your venue's refund policy.

You'll first need to ensure that gift card refund settings have been configured in order for gift card refunds to be available as a refund method.

Making the right decision here protects both your revenue reporting and your capacity management.

To issue a refund, open the booking and select refund from the options menu.

You'll choose between two refund types.

Refund booking items allows you to select specific items to refund.

This is best when only part of the booking is being canceled. It also ensures the refund is allocated against the correct item in your reporting, helping keep your financial data accurate.

Refund amount allows you to enter a custom value. Be aware that refunding a custom amount can leave the booking imbalanced as the refund is not tied to a specific item. For past bookings, this will also automatically cancel the booking to keep revenue reporting accurate. You cannot refund more than the original purchase amount.

Next, select the refund method. Where possible, refund to the original payment method.

For example, credit card payments are automatically refunded back to the same card, reducing fraud risk.

You can also refund via cash, check, bank transfer, or gift card.

Add a clear internal note explaining the reason for the refund, then select refund.

If the booking will no longer go ahead, select cancel booking once refund is processed.

This releases the capacity immediately after the refund is completed. If you do not select this option, the booking will remain active after the refund.

To cancel a booking without issuing a refund, open the options menu and select Cancel Booking.

A confirmation message will appear, as this action can't be undone.

After a booking is canceled, the booking status changes to canceled. All tickets and resources are released and become available for sale.

Active payment links automatically expire.

Invoices must be manually marked as canceled in the activity stream. Otherwise, they will still appear as pending in reports. Canceled bookings cannot be reactivated. If a booking is canceled by mistake, it cannot be restored. The correct process is to create a new booking. This ensures capacity, revenue recognition, and reporting remain accurate. If payment was already refunded, create a new booking and take payment again if required.

If you need to refund a past booking, your venue settings must allow past booking modifications. Without this enabled, refunds for past dates will be blocked. This setting is found under settings, account, venue settings.

Select the unlock to make changes button and scroll down to the bookings modifications drop down. Select the drop down and choose your preferred modification time frame. If you allow past booking edits, remember that only specific roles with the correct permissions will be able to process those refunds.

You now know how to determine whether to refund, cancel, or both. You can process full or partial refunds, choose the correct refund method, and understand what happens after cancellation. Most importantly, you know that canceled bookings cannot be reactivated and that creating a new booking is the correct fix when needed. This ensures your reporting, payment records, and capacity remain accurate and reliable.