A refund sends money back to the buyer through the provider that took the payment. memberarea then records it, issues a credit note and, after a full refund of a one-off purchase, removes the access the order granted. This article covers where refunds are listed, how to issue one and what follows.
Before you start
If Payments is off in your workspace, switch it on under Settings > Features first. Seeing refunds needs View Payments, and issuing one needs Issue Refunds. Of the built-in roles, Owner and Admin have both.
Where refunds are listed
Open Payments > Sales > Refunds. The list shows every payment with at least part of its amount refunded: the order, the customer, the refunded amount next to the charged amount, the status Refunded or Partially refunded, and the credit notes issued for it. The Type switch above the list moves between Refunds, Withdrawals and Disputes. How to handle withdrawals is described in Withdrawals.
Test refunds are hidden. In the three-dot menu, Show test refunds includes them, and Export CSV downloads the list as it is currently filtered. The search and the export also find order numbers.
Click a row to open Refund details. It shows what was charged, what is still refundable, the payment ID and each credit note with Download PDF.
Issuing a refund
You can start a refund in two places: Issue refund above the refunds list, or Refund on an order.
- In Issue refund, pick the payment. The list shows the 25 most recent live payments that still have money left to refund; search by the Stripe or PayPal payment ID to find an older one. Test payments appear here only while Show test refunds is on.
- Choose Full refund, or Partial refund and enter the Refund amount. The amount cannot exceed the refundable balance.
- Optionally pick a Reason: Requested by customer, Duplicate charge or Fraudulent.
- Click Issue refund.
Refunds cannot be reversed once issued. Check the amount before you confirm.
For a Stripe or PayPal payment with money left, Refund details also offers Refund remaining, which opens the same dialog for the rest of the amount. While a refund is still being processed, its amount is held back from the refundable balance, and the same refund sent twice in a row is not paid out twice. A second partial refund of the same amount goes through once the first one is booked, or after five minutes.
Which payments can be refunded here
Only payments taken by Stripe or PayPal. Orders paid by bank transfer, cash or invoice, and free or manual orders, have no charge that memberarea could reverse, so they never appear in Issue refund. Pay that money back outside memberarea, then set the order to Refunded on the order. That removes the access of the order and returns stock.
If a bank transfer, invoice or cash order has an invoice, setting it to Refunded or Cancelled also issues a credit note, as long as credit notes are issued automatically. When a payment was recorded on the order, the buyer gets the Order Refunded email with the credit note attached. Cancelling an unpaid purchase on invoice only issues the credit note.
A refund you make directly in your Stripe or PayPal account reaches memberarea too, and is handled exactly like one issued here.
What happens after a refund
memberarea books the refund once Stripe or PayPal confirms it, not when you click the button. Then:
- The payment shows as Refunded or Partially refunded.
- Affiliate commissions on the payment are reversed in proportion to the refunded share.
- A credit note is issued, as long as credit notes are issued automatically.
- The buyer gets the Order Refunded email, as long as that email is switched on under Settings > Notifications. The credit note is attached when one was issued. Without automatic credit notes the email still goes out, without a PDF.
A full refund of a one-off purchase goes further. The order is marked as refunded and the buyer loses the access this order granted. Access you granted by hand stays, and so does what another paid, processing, shipped or delivered order still gives them. Stock for products with inventory tracking goes back, a gift card used on the order gets the applied amount back, and an unused gift card bought with the order is deactivated.
A partial refund leaves access in place. A refunded subscription payment does too: refunding one month does not end the subscription. Cancel it separately if the buyer should lose access.
Cancelling, resuming and extending subscriptions
Credit notes
With automatic issuing on, every refund gets its own credit note. Credit notes
run in their own gap-free sequence, separate from invoices, and start again
each year. The number has the form CN-2026-00001, for test orders
TEST-CN-2026-00001 from a sequence of their own. A credit note names the
invoice of the refunded payment, for a subscription the invoice of that
renewal, lists its items and takes over its tax in proportion to the refunded
amount. If there is no invoice, the credit note carries no invoice number.
Under Payments > Settings > Documents, the Credit note tab holds the Number prefix, title, note and footer, plus the switch Auto-issue credit-notes on refunds. It is on from the start. Customers can download their credit notes in their billing area.
A lost dispute takes money back without a refund, so it does not create a credit note.