Configuring automatic or manual refunds

On the same screen as the refund tiers (Settings > Cancellation refund tiers, section "Cancellation refund policy") you also configure how a refund is processed and in what form the customer is compensated.

Automatic or manual processing

The Refund execution on cancellation setting determines who actually executes the refund:

• Automatic (default) — the calculated refund is paid out directly via the payment provider, without staff involvement.
• Review by staff — the amount is only recorded as an outstanding line; a staff member processes the refund via the refunds overview.

Compensation type: money or gift voucher

The Compensation type on cancellation setting determines in what form the customer gets their money back:

• Money back via the payment provider (default).
• Gift voucher by e-mail — instead of money, a gift voucher is created for the value of the refund and e-mailed to the customer. Also choose the voucher type to use at Gift voucher type for compensation: the code format, PDF template and validity come from this voucher type, only the amount comes from the calculated refund.

Combination: review by staff plus gift voucher

These two settings are independent and can both be used at the same time. With the combination Review by staff + Gift voucher by e-mail, nothing happens yet at the moment of cancellation: the line stays open in the refunds overview. Only when a staff member processes that line manually is the gift voucher created and sent — the compensation is postponed until the manual decision, not silently skipped. If execution is set to automatic instead, the gift voucher is created directly at the moment of cancellation.

Excluding objects from automatic calculation

Under Excluded objects (same section) you specify which objects never get an automatically calculated refund percentage, regardless of the tier table. For those objects a colleague always reviews the cancellation manually — this is independent of the setting above: an excluded object simply has no calculated amount to automate.

Relation to the AI agent

When your AI agent cancels a booking, it first calculates the refund percentage itself using the tier table, and shows that amount to the customer before confirming the cancellation. After confirmation, the AI agent applies the same settings on this page as it would for a cancellation by a staff member or by the customer themselves:

• If execution is set to automatic, the AI agent processes the refund (money or gift voucher) itself right away and reports this to the customer.
• If execution is set to review by staff, the AI agent tells the customer that a colleague will still review the refund, and the line appears open in the refunds overview.
• If an automatic payout fails, for example due to a payment provider outage, the AI agent honestly reports this to the customer instead of pretending it succeeded; the line stays open with the error visible to staff.
• For excluded objects the AI agent will not name a percentage itself and refers the customer to a staff member.

So there is no separate setting for the AI agent: you configure the policy once for all channels — administrator, customer and AI agent.

Required right: menu_config_cancelrefundrules.

See also

For reviewing and processing outstanding refunds, see: Reviewing and processing refunds.