Nothing auto-refunds in ArtistryHost. A refund is always a deliberate staff action, and every refund runs through Square — the guest sees the credit on their statement in about 1–3 business days. There are two kinds of refund, and each has its own path.
Refund a prepayment or deposit (cancel-and-refund)
An up-front payment — a full prepayment or a deposit — is refunded as part of cancelling the booking, not from a separate refund button.
- Open the booking on the run sheet and start a Cancel.
- In the cancel dialog, tick "Refund the $X prepayment" (or deposit). Leave it unchecked to cancel without refunding — that's the default.
- Type REFUND in the confirm box. This is required so real money never moves on a stray checkbox.
- Confirm the cancellation. Square issues the refund and the booking is marked cancelled and refunded.
This refund is all-or-nothing: it returns the full up-front amount (across every charge, if a deposit was split across, say, a card and a gift card). There's no "enter a partial amount" option today.
Refund from Square directly
You can also refund any transaction from Square Dashboard → Transactions or the Square POS app. This works, but ArtistryHost won't know about it — there's no in-app mirror, so the booking will still read as paid even though the money has been returned. Use the cancel-and-refund path above when you want the record to stay in sync.
Refunding a cancellation or no-show fee
If you charged the guest a fee under your cancellation policy (e.g., they cancelled inside 48 hours, a 50% fee applied, and you charged it from the run sheet), and you want to refund that fee anyway as a goodwill gesture:
- Open the cancelled or no-show booking on the run sheet.
- Find the charged fee in the cancellation row on the card. "Cancellation fee (50%): $37.50."
- Click Refund Fee, enter a reason (required, for your records), and confirm.
The fee is refunded in full — there's no partial-amount option. Only that specific charge is refunded; the rest of the booking history stays as-is.
Common refund questions
The guest paid with their own gift card. Can I refund that? Yes. The refund goes back to the original payment method, so the gift-card balance is restored. Square handles this automatically.
The deposit was on an ArtistryHost-issued gift card. This one is different. A deposit loaded onto a Square gift card by ArtistryHost is an activated liability, so the cancel-and-refund checkbox doesn't cover it. Cancel the booking here, then void or adjust the gift card from the Square Dashboard to return the value.
Card on file booking, guest no-showed. If you decide to charge the no-show fee, do it from the run sheet (per your policy). If you decide to waive it later, refund that fee from the booking card with Refund Fee.
Refund taking longer than 3 days. Most refunds clear in 1–3 business days. Some banks take 5–10. If it's been more than 10, contact Square Support. They can trace it.
Receipts
The guest receives a refund receipt from Square automatically. You don't need to send anything extra. If they ask for another copy, you can resend it from the Square Dashboard.