Refunds and cancellations

By the end of this guide, you'll know how to refund a payment (full or partial), what the booking looks like afterwards, what the guest gets, and how cancelling a booking differs from refunding a payment.

What you can refund

Refunds work per payment, not per booking. If a booking has more than one successful payment (say a deposit and a balance), each one gets its own refund button.

Step 1: Open the booking and find the payment

Sidebar → Bookings → click the booking → scroll to the Payments section.

Find the row you want to refund — an Online row with a green Succeeded badge. On the right of that row is a small hand-coins icon. Click it.

If you don't see the icon, the row either isn't Succeeded yet or has already been fully refunded. Pending and failed rows show a Delete icon instead.

Step 2: Enter the amount

A box opens titled Refund payment, with the Amount already filled in to the most you can refund.

• Full refund — leave the amount as it is and click Refund now.
• Partial refund — type a smaller number. You can go as low as the smallest unit of your currency. Whatever's left stays refundable, so you can refund the rest later from the same row.

Click Refund now. Nothing's refunded yet — this just sends you the confirmation code for the next step.

Step 3: Enter the confirmation code

The box now asks for a code: "We sent a 6-digit confirmation code to j***@yourdomain.com. Enter it below to authorise the refund."

Open the inbox for the address shown (the one you log into cabintale with). Look for an email from Cabintale with the subject "Confirm refund" — inside is a large 6-digit number. Copy it.

Back in the box, type the 6 digits and click Confirm refund.

The code is good for 10 minutes. After 5 wrong tries it stops working and you start over — click Back, then Refund now for a fresh code.

If the email never arrives:

• Check your spam folder.
• Make sure you're logged in with the right email address — the code always goes to your cabintale account email, never the guest's.
• Give it up to a minute; it's usually instant but can occasionally lag.

Step 4: What happens after

Your payment gateway processes the refund, and within a couple of seconds the booking updates:

• A new row appears in the Payments table — a Refund with a negative amount (-2900 CZK) and a Refunded badge.
• The original payment row keeps its Succeeded badge — that payment really did happen, so it stays on record. The refund is shown as its own line.
• The To be paid total at the bottom is recalculated for you.
• If the refund covers everything that was paid online, the booking drops from Paid back to Confirmed, and the Payment link button reappears.

Your payment gateway emails the guest its own refund receipt automatically. Cabintale doesn't send a separate one.

Multiple partial refunds

You can refund a payment several times until the original amount is used up:

Each refund sends its own confirmation code and adds its own row to the Payments table. Once a payment is fully refunded, its refund icon disappears.

Refunds you make in your gateway dashboard

If you refund a payment directly in your payment gateway's dashboard (or its support team does it for you), cabintale notices within seconds and adds the row to the Payments table — just as if you'd done it in cabintale. There's no emailed code in this direction, because your gateway dashboard already has its own login protecting it.

Cancelling a booking vs. refunding a payment

Refunding and cancelling are two separate actions in cabintale, on purpose.

A common situation:

1. Guest emails: "I have to cancel."
2. You refund the payment (this guide).
3. You then cancel the booking (Sidebar → Bookings → row menu → Delete) so the dates reopen.

Doing them in this order means the guest sees their money come back first, then the booking goes away. If you cancel without refunding, the dates open up but the money stays with you — just issue the refund afterwards.

Heads up. A "Cancel booking" button that can refund at the same time is on the way. For now, the two actions are separate.

What the guest sees

• From the payment gateway — an automatic refund email with the original receipt and the new refund line, in the same language the guest used at checkout.
• From cabintale — nothing automatic. If you want to add a personal note ("we'll see you next year", "here's what happened"), reply to the booking-confirmation email or write to the guest directly.

The refund usually shows up on the guest's card within 5–10 business days, often as a separate credit line. If a guest asks where the money is, point them to their card statement first; only then check the Refunds tab in your payment gateway's dashboard.

Troubleshooting

Related guides

• Accept payments on a property — Accept payments on a property
• Payment gateways (account-level setup) — Payment gateways
• Stripe setup — Stripe setup