Refunds and cancellations
What this is for
Three different tools for three different problems. Picking the wrong one is how a day's takings stop reconciling.
| Problem | Tool |
|---|---|
| One dish is wrong, order not paid | Cancel KOT Item |
| The whole order shouldn't happen, not paid | Cancel Order |
| Money has already been taken | Refund |
| The order was never real | Delete Order |
The dividing line is money. Once payment has been taken, you refund. Everything before that is a cancellation.
Cancelling one item
For a dish sent to the kitchen that shouldn't have been — wrong item, guest changed their mind, something came out badly.
- Find the item on the order.
- Select Cancel KOT Item.
- Choose a Cancel Reason, or pick Other and type a Custom Reason.
- Confirm.
It can't be undone. It's recorded with the reason and who did it.
The reason is required for a real operational purpose: cancelled items are a report, and reading it monthly tells you whether you have a training problem, a menu problem, or a kitchen problem. "Other" with nothing typed tells you nothing.
Set your standard reasons under Settings › Cancellation Reasons — wrong item, guest changed mind, kitchen error, out of stock — so staff pick rather than type.
Cancelling a whole order
Select Cancel Order on the order.
Restodesk warns you clearly, and it means it:
This will cancel the order and delete any associated payments. This action cannot be undone.
Read that middle clause. Cancelling deletes the payments attached to the order. If money has genuinely changed hands, cancelling makes the record disagree with your drawer. Refund instead.
A cancelled order stops moving through the order journey, releases its table, and appears in your Cancelled Orders report with the reason and who cancelled it.
Refunding
For money that has already been taken. Select Process Refund on the order.
Refund types
| Type | Use when |
|---|---|
| Full Refund | The whole payment goes back. The amount equals the payment and can't be changed. |
| Partial Refund | Some of it goes back. |
| Waste / Write-Off Refund | Nothing goes back to the customer — you're writing off stock. |
Partial refunds
Choose how the amount is worked out:
- Half the Price — half, calculated for you.
- Fixed Amount — a set figure.
- Custom Amount — you type it, up to the Maximum refund amount.
You can't refund more than was paid. The maximum is shown on screen.
Waste and write-offs
Waste / Write-Off Refund is the one people misunderstand.
It removes items from inventory without generating revenue and without returning money to a customer. The amount shown is the write-off value, not a refund.
Use it for a dish dropped on the way to the table, a bottle broken behind the bar, food that spoiled. Nobody paid, so nobody is being repaid — but the stock is gone and the accounts should say so.
Don't use it for a guest complaint where you actually handed money back. That's a partial or full refund.
Reasons and notes
Every refund takes a Refund Reason — configured under Settings › Refund Reasons — plus free Notes.
Write the note. In six months the reason code will say "quality issue" and the note is the only thing that says which dish and what was wrong with it.
What's recorded
Every refund is logged with the amount, the reason, the original payment, the time, and who processed it. It appears in the Refund Report alongside the total refunded, the original amount, and any inventory change.
That report is worth reading monthly. Refunds concentrated on one dish, one shift, or one member of staff is information you want early.
Deleting an order
Delete Order removes the record entirely.
Use it only for an order that was never real — a mis-tap, a test order, a duplicate created by a double press. Anything a guest actually experienced should be cancelled or refunded, so it stays in the history.
Deleting is not a tidier cancellation. It's the removal of evidence, and it should be rare.
Who's allowed to do this
Cancelling and refunding are permissions, controlled by role. Most restaurants restrict them to managers, or allow item cancellation for everyone and order-level refunds for managers only.
Set this deliberately rather than leaving it open. See Your team.
If a button isn't there for you, that's usually why — Why can't I see this screen?
Good to know
- Cancel deletes payments; refund preserves them. That's the whole distinction.
- Cancelled and refunded orders both stay in the record. Only deletion removes an order.
- A refund doesn't reopen the order for editing. It stays closed.
- Waste refunds affect inventory where Stock & Recipes is in use, and are recorded either way.