A refund in Sharper returns money to a customer for a payment they already made. This article explains three things that surprise people the most: how much you are allowed to refund on a credit card and when, what the refund messages on screen actually mean, and what happens to the Service Fee — which behaves differently depending on how you issue the refund.
The two ways to refund a payment
Sharper has two refund paths, and they are not interchangeable.
Path | How to get there | What it does |
Refund tied to a payment | Go to CRM → Payments, find the payment, open its actions menu and choose Refund. | Refunds against that specific payment. Sharper limits the amount to what is still refundable on that payment. This is the path to use for card and ACH refunds. |
Standalone refund | Go to CRM → Refunds and click Add New. | Creates a refund record for a customer and lets you apply it to their transactions yourself. Use this for check and cash refunds and for corrections. |
Deposit refund on a reservation | Open the reservation and use the Refund button in the Deposit Details panel. | Returns an unused deposit balance. The other buttons in that panel are Pay deposit, Apply to invoice, Retain and Issue Credit. |
The fields on a standalone refund are Refund Id, Customer, Refund Date, Amount, Service Fee, Total, Reference and the payment type. Below them is a settlement table with the columns Date, Number, Type, Original Amount, Amount Due and Payment, where you choose which transactions the refund applies to.
Note: The standalone CRM → Refunds form does not check your Amount against an original payment, so it will accept a figure larger than what the customer actually paid. Any excess stays unapplied on the customer's account. Confirm the amount before you save, or use CRM → Payments → Refund, which caps it for you.
Why a partial card refund is sometimes blocked
Whether you can refund part of a card charge depends on where that charge is in your processor's settlement window — the period between when you capture the card and when the processor actually settles the batch, usually the same or the next business day.
Before settlement, many processors do not accept a partial reversal at all. The only action available is a void of the entire captured amount. Sharper will tell you to refund the full amount or wait until the transaction settles.
After settlement, a partial refund is normally accepted, up to the amount still refundable on that transaction.
So the same card payment can refuse a partial refund in the morning and accept it the next day. If you need to return only part of a charge and the charge has not settled yet, you have two choices: void the whole payment and re-charge the correct amount, or wait for settlement and then refund the difference.
A void and a refund are not the same thing. A void cancels an unsettled transaction so it never reaches the customer's statement. A refund is a new transaction that returns money after settlement. Once a payment settles, Void is no longer offered.
What the refund messages mean
These are the messages you are most likely to see, and what each one is telling you to do.
Message | What it means and what to do |
Transaction is not yet settled. To void this transaction, the full captured amount must be voided. Refund the full amount or wait until the transaction settles. | You asked for a partial refund inside the settlement window. Refund the whole amount now, or come back after the transaction settles. |
The active payment processor requires the full payment amount to be settled in a single action. Partial refunds are not allowed. | Same situation, shown on the refund form under the heading Partial Refund Not Allowed. Reduce nothing — refund the full amount, or wait. |
The requested refund amount exceeds the maximum refundable amount for this transaction. | Part of this payment has already been refunded, or your Amount is higher than the original charge. Check the payment's existing refunds and lower the amount. |
Transaction has already been fully refunded. | Nothing is left to return on this payment. If the customer is still owed money, issue a credit memo instead. |
Transaction was not captured; cannot refund. Void the authorization instead. | The card was authorized but the money was never taken. Use Void to release the authorization. |
Credit card refunds are not supported by the current payment processor. or Action is not supported for this transaction on the active payment processor. | Sharper could not confirm that the processor currently configured for this outlet can handle a card refund. This is not always a permanent processor limit — it also appears when the outlet has no card processor set up, or when the check simply did not complete. Confirm the outlet's payment processor is configured, then try again before concluding the processor cannot do it. |
Unable to verify payment gateway capabilities. Please try again. or Loading payment gateway capabilities. Please try again. | A temporary check against the processor did not finish. Wait a moment and retry — nothing has been refunded. |
Credit card refunds cannot be edited with the current payment processor. | A card refund that has been sent to the processor cannot be changed afterwards. See the last section of this article. |
Refunds for payments with multiple settlements that include credit card remittances must be processed as credit memos. | The payment has been applied across several transactions in a way that cannot be reversed directly. Issue a credit memo and refund from there. |
You can refund only deposit payments via credit memo. | The refund you are attempting on a reservation deposit has to go through a credit memo rather than a direct refund. |
You cannot void period closed refunds. | The refund falls in a closed accounting period. Reopen the period, or correct it with a new transaction in the current period. |
What happens to the service fee
If you add a fee to card payments, it appears as Service Fee — or whatever wording you entered in Service Fee Text under Company Settings → Outlet Defaults → Service Fee Settings. Refunds do not treat that fee the same way in every case. This is the single most common source of "the refund total is not what I expected".
Refund path | What happens to the service fee |
Refund created in CRM (a payment refund or a standalone refund) | Added. The fee is added on top of the Amount, and Total is what is actually returned to the customer. |
Deposit refund from a reservation's Deposit Details panel | Retained. The fee is kept and is not returned with the deposit, so the customer receives less than they originally paid. |
Credit card refund spread across more than one settled transaction | Pro-rated. The fee is divided across the transactions the refund is applied to, in proportion to each amount. |
Cash, check or ACH refunds | Omitted. No service fee is included in the refund at all. |
The service fee on a refund is recalculated from your current processor settings — it is not copied from the original payment. If your Service Fee Amount has changed since the customer paid, the refund will carry the new fee, not the one they were charged. Always read the Service Fee and Total fields before you save, and adjust the Amount if the Total is not what you intend to return.
The Service Fee field on the refund form can be edited only by users whose role allows editing the credit card service fee, and it is locked for everyone if Read Only Service Fee Input is switched on in Company Settings → Outlet Defaults → Service Fee Settings. If the field is greyed out and the figure is wrong, that is why.
Refunding a credit memo
A credit memo is a credit sitting on a customer's account. To pay it out, go to CRM → Credit Memos, open or select the credit memo, and click Give Refund. The panel shows Customer, Ref. No, Date and Refund Amount, and you confirm with Give.
A credit memo refund pays out the full credit balance — it is not a partial payout.
Credit memo refunds are issued by check. They are not returned to the customer's card, even if the original payment was a card.
If the panel shows Credit card refunds are not supported by the current payment processor, that relates to the card path, not to the check payout.
When to issue a credit memo instead of a refund
A credit memo is the right tool, and sometimes the only tool, when:
The payment has already been fully refunded but the customer is still owed money.
The payment was applied across several transactions and Sharper tells you it must be processed as a credit memo.
The customer is staying with you and would rather hold the balance against a future invoice than receive money back.
The original payment is in a closed accounting period and you do not want to reopen it.
Before you save a card refund
A credit card refund cannot be undone or edited once it is saved and sent to the processor. There is no Void and no Delete on a card refund. Check the customer, the Amount, the Service Fee and the Total before saving.
Check and cash refunds are more forgiving: while they sit in an open accounting period and have not been applied to any transaction, Void and Delete are still available from the refund's actions menu in CRM → Refunds. Voiding asks you to confirm with Yes, Void.
A refund on a payment that was marked as a bounced check is never possible. Once a payment carries the red Bounced badge, both Void and Refund are permanently unavailable on it.