Refunding a guest: full and partial refunds

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Why	Give money back to the guest — in full or in part — and keep the cash desk and the journal accurate.
Who	Front desk staff and administrators.
What you’ll get	A refund recorded as an operation on the booking card, with correct totals in the shift and the money journal.
Limitations	Online refunds are for cards paid through Stripe only. The system does not track settlement times — those belong to the bank and the gateway.

The guest left early, paid twice, or canceled under a refundable policy — the money has to go back. In HotelsCalendar a refund is a money entry just like a payment: same booking card, same form — only the “Operation type” is “Refund”.

This article covers when a refund is due, how to record one, and where it goes once saved.

When a refund is due

Three of the most common scenarios:

Cancellation under a refundable policy. The guest canceled, and the terms of their rate allow returning the money — in full or minus the penalty. The terms come from the rate’s cancellation policy; how it works is covered in Cancellation policies: set up and enforce.
A double or excess payment. The guest paid twice — say, via a link and again in cash at the desk — or paid more than the booking cost. The extra amount goes back.
Early departure. The guest left before the planned date: the check-out date is moved, the stay is recalculated for the nights actually spent — and the overpayment is refunded.

Do not confuse a refund with a cancellation. A cancellation changes the booking’s status — the booking stops holding the room; a refund is the movement of money. They usually happen together, but they are two separate operations: after canceling, the refund is recorded on its own.

Record a refund

Open the booking card: from the “Bookings” list or by clicking the booking bar on the Planner.
Go to the “Payments” tab.
Click “Add payment” — the “New payment” form opens.
In the “Operation type” field, choose “Refund”. “Payment” is the default; there is no separate refund button on the card — a refund is recorded through this same form.
Enter the “Amount” — how much you are returning: part of the payment for a partial refund, or the whole amount taken for a full one.
Pick the “Payment method” — the same one the payment arrived by: money comes back the same way it came in.
Check the “Date” — today’s date is filled in by default; change it if needed.
Add a “Description” — the reason for the refund: “canceled under policy”, “double payment”. It is a note for colleagues and for reconciliation.
Click “Save”.

Result: the refund appears in the list on the “Payments” tab, and the “Amount / Paid / Balance due” summary recalculates as the mirror of a payment: “Paid” goes down, “Balance due” goes up. The entry lands in the open cashier shift and in the money journal.

How it lands in the shift

A refund flows into the open cashier shift — like a payment, only in reverse: the “Expected balance” goes down. The shift’s total is made up of payments and refunds, plus manual cash-ins and cash-outs.

When you close the shift, you enter the “Actual balance” and the system reconciles it against the expected one — refunds count in that reconciliation: cash handed back to the guest reduces what should be in the cash desk at count time.

That is why the shift is opened before the day’s first operations — the rule applies to refunds too: with no open shift, there is nothing to reconcile the day’s entries against. The full shift routine is in The cashier shift: open, take payments, close.

How it looks in the journal

Every refund becomes a line in the “Money movements” journal: under “Finances”, the “Money movements” tab.

In the “Type” column, such a line reads “Refund” — that is how the journal tells refunds apart from payments.
The “Document” column holds a “Booking #…” link: clicking it opens the booking card with its payments.

The journal covers the current month; reading it — columns, filters, finding a booking — is covered in The money journal: what moved through the hotel.

Cash and card

How the refund works depends on how the payment arrived:

Cash. The guest gets the money from the cash desk — right away, at the desk. The operation is recorded as a “Refund” and lands in the open shift, reducing the “Expected balance”.
Card. If the payment came in online — via a payment link (Stripe) — the refund goes back to the same card through the payment gateway. The refund entry appears on the booking, and the gateway moves the money back.

How soon the money reaches the guest’s account is up to their bank: HotelsCalendar records the operation itself, not the settlement time. Do not promise the guest a date — “the money will return to the same card” is enough.

Who can record a refund

Refund permissions are part of payment permissions. In an access group, they belong to the “Payments” module, which carries a view/edit pair: payments and refunds can be recorded by whoever holds the edit permission. A “Viewer” has no edit permission — payments are visible, but nothing can be recorded.

How access groups work and how to hand out permissions is covered in Roles and permissions: how access works.

Honest boundaries

Three boundaries worth knowing in advance:

No settlement times in the system. HotelsCalendar records the refund operation; when the money reaches the guest is decided by the gateway and the bank — so no timelines are quoted.
No automatic policy refunds. A cancellation policy describes the terms — when a refund is due and how much to keep; the operation itself is always recorded by a staff member, by hand.
Online refunds — Stripe only. Card refunds through the gateway are claimed for payments made through Stripe; automatic refunds through other online methods are not promised.