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How can I refund an invoice payment to a client?
How can I refund an invoice payment to a client?

Follow these steps to refund a payment via Stripe or Bonsai Payments

Updated over a week ago

If you ever need to refund a payment you received from your clients, you should do so directly through Bonsai's platform. How you trigger a refund depends on how you were paid.

πŸ‘‰ Important: If you are refunding a payment made through Stripe, you must issue the refund directly through Bonsai as outlined below.

Do not issue any refunds through your Stripe Dashboard directly.

πŸ‘‰ Note: If you issue a refund directly through Stripe's interface, only the net payment amount will be refunded (ie. the payment amount minus processing fees).

Example: refunding $100 directly through the Stripe interface will lead to only $96.80 being refunded (assuming the fees were $3.20).

If you were paid via credit card using Stripe or Bonsai Payments, click on the invoice you'd like to refund then click 'More Options' and select 'Refund Payment' from the dropdown.

It's just a few easy steps that we'll outline below!

  1. Navigate to and open the invoice you'd like to refund.

  2. Click on 'More Options' on the upper left of the screen.

  3. Choose the Refund Payment option from the dropdown.

  4. Select if you'd like to issue a Full or Partial Refund and enter the refund amount.

Note: For security reasons, a refund can take up to 10 business days to be fully processed.


If you were paid via ACH through Stripe or Bonsai Payments, you cannot refund the payment electronically, since it's effectively the same as writing a check. You will need to directly transfer the funds back to the client from your bank.

πŸ‘‰ Note: If you are issuing a refund for a payment made through PayPal, you must have a sufficient balance in your PayPal account to cover the cost of the refund or the refund will fail.

If you were paid through another method (Wire Transfer, Mailed Check or Cash) then you will need to initiate the refund directly from your bank account or in person.

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