Refunds

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)

The simplest way to return an up-front payment — a full prepayment or a deposit — is as part of cancelling the booking.

1. Open the booking on the run sheet. The run sheet shows one day at a time, so use the date picker to get to the booking's date (and the location switcher if you run more than one venue). On a live booking, Cancel is under More ▾ on the card.
2. In the cancel dialog, tick "Refund the $X prepayment" (or deposit). Leave it unchecked to cancel without refunding — that's the default.
3. Type REFUND in the confirm box. This is required so real money never moves on a stray checkbox.
4. 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.

Already cancelled? Refund it after the fact

A cancelled or no-show booking whose prepayment or deposit is still held keeps a refund control on its card, so the money is never stuck. You'll need this when:

• the booking was cancelled without ticking Refund (or the guest cancelled it themselves outside your refund window and you've decided to return the money anyway),
• the Square refund failed during the cancel — a lapsed Square connection, for instance — and the card now shows the booking as cancelled but the money as still held,
• you're calling off an event and refunding everyone after the fact.

1. Open the cancelled or no-show booking on the run sheet (it's in the History tab for that day).
2. In the cancellation row on the card, look for "$X prepayment still held — not refunded with this cancellation".
3. Click Refund $X prepayment (or deposit), enter a reason — it's required and goes in the booking's activity log — and confirm.

It's the same full-amount Square refund the cancel dialog issues. Once it goes through, the row flips to Prepayment refunded and the activity log records who refunded it and why.

Prepaid outside the app? If a booking was marked prepaid by hand or paid through a Square invoice you sent, there's no ArtistryHost-collected payment to refund. The cancel dialog and the cancellation row will say so — cancel here, then refund it where the money was collected: the Square invoice, or the Square Dashboard.

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:

1. Open the cancelled or no-show booking on the run sheet.
2. Find the charged fee in the cancellation row on the card. "Cancellation fee (50%): $37.50."
3. 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.