A refund touches four things: the payment gateway, the order record, stock, and the customer’s expectations. Configured properly they stay in step. Configured loosely, money goes back without stock returning, or the order says refunded while the gateway says otherwise — and reconciliation becomes guesswork.
Refund & return workflow configuration
Refunds and returns need a workflow that works. We configure the process end to end so refunds reach the customer and the store stays accurate.
- Full backup taken before we start
- If we can’t fix it, you get your money back
- We never ask for your own password
What we need from you
- Your refund policy in plain language
- Whether refunds should restock automatically
- Who is allowed to issue refunds
- Whether you need a customer-facing return request process
This or something else?
| Refunds not reaching the customer | PayPal / Stripe webhook repair |
| Refunds not restocking | This fix covers it |
| You need a return request process | This fix covers it |
| Order and gateway disagreeing | This fix covers it |
| Partial refunds calculating wrongly | This fix covers it |
What we do
- Review how refunds currently work and where they break down
- Configure gateway refunds so they can be issued from the order screen
- Set restocking behaviour to match your policy
- Configure partial refunds, including tax and shipping handling
- Add a customer-facing return request flow if you want one
- Test a full and a partial refund end to end, and verify both sides agree
What is included
- A refund process that works from the order screen, tested
- Stock, tax and shipping handled correctly on partial refunds
- Gateway and order records staying in agreement
- The pre-change backup, kept for 30 days
Not included
- Writing your refund policy, which is a commercial and legal decision
- Issuing refunds on your behalf
- Building a full returns management system, which we quote separately
- Design changes or content work
Questions about this fix
Why does a refund not restock automatically?
Because WooCommerce cannot know whether the goods came back. It is a setting, and the right value depends on whether you refund before or after receiving the return. We configure it to match how you actually work.
Partial refunds get the tax wrong.
Common, and usually a configuration issue in how tax is apportioned across the refunded amount. It matters for your accounts, so it is worth fixing properly rather than adjusting each one by hand.
Can customers request a return themselves?
Yes, and it saves considerable support time. It is optional and we only add it if you want it, because it also means managing a queue of requests rather than handling them in email.
The gateway shows a refund but the order does not.
That is the two sides falling out of step, usually a webhook problem. It matters because your reporting will be wrong until they agree, and reconciling it later is much harder than fixing the mechanism now.
Can refunds be limited to certain payment methods?
The restriction usually lives with the gateway rather than WooCommerce — some methods, like certain bank transfers, can't be refunded programmatically at all, and we'll tell you which of yours fall into that category.
Related fixes
If this is the second time this year
A bad update breaking the site is a symptom of updates not being tested first. Care plans run every update on a staging clone before it reaches your live site, which is the actual fix for this happening again.
Your access, your rules
Create a separate admin account for us and delete it when we are done. For anything else, we get in touch and agree a method — never a form field on this site, never by reply to an email.
We back up first, always
Before anything is touched we take a full backup and keep it for 30 days. If a fix goes wrong, we put the site back exactly as it was.
If it is not what you bought
If the problem turns out smaller than what you ordered, we refund the difference. If it is bigger, we stop and send a quote before doing any extra work.
If we cannot fix it
You get back what we received. Diagnosis is on us — you only pay when the problem is actually solved. The payment processor takes its fee before the money reaches us, so we never hold it and it is not ours to return. That is true here as everywhere else.
If it comes back
Reply within seven days of delivery and we put it back on the bench at no cost. The fix is not finished until it holds.
What we are responsible for
If something goes wrong with a fix, our responsibility is limited to what you paid for it. We take a full backup first so mistakes can be undone, and we tell you before doing anything outside what you bought.