Set your refund policy
Write down when people get their money back if they cancel, choose which policy each paid event follows, and see how cancellations, refund requests, and disputes then play out.
Where it lives Where it lives: Sidebar → Financial → Refund Policies
Keep your policies in one place
Refund Policies under Financial lists every policy your neighborhood has written, each with its terms spelled out the way attendees read them, and how many events use it. A policy is one of three kinds: Refund until a deadline (a full or partial refund up to a set time before the event), No refunds, or Case by case (attendees ask and an organizer decides each one).
Until you write one, every paid event follows Case by case. That is also the policy most ticketing sites use when an organizer hasn't picked one.
Start from a template
New policy offers five starting points. Flexible gives a full refund until 24 hours before the event. Standard gives a full refund until 7 days before. Tiered gives a full refund until 14 days before, half until 3 days before, and nothing after. No refunds and Case by case are the other two. Picking one fills in the form, and you can change anything before you save.
Standard suits most ticketed events. Tiered fits events where you pay for food or supplies in advance and late cancellations cost you money.
Set the deadlines
A deadline policy has up to three refund amounts, each with how long before the event it lasts, in hours or days. The refund has to get smaller as the event gets closer, so a full refund until 14 days before can be followed by half until 3 days before, but not the other way round. Leave a row's refund on No refund to skip it. After the last deadline, nothing is refunded. Additional details adds your own wording under the terms, up to 1,000 characters. For multi-date events, deadlines count back from the first session.
Changing the deadlines or the wording gives the policy a new version number. Renaming it does not.
Choose your default
Tick Use for events that don't choose a policy, and every paid event that hasn't picked its own follows it. Only one policy can be the default. The banner on the Refund Policies tab says which policy is your default and how many events follow it. Deleting a policy moves its events back to the default, and deleting the default puts them on Case by case.
Pick a policy for one event
Refund policy sits right under the participation waiver in the Custom Questions section of the event form. Leave it on your neighborhood's default, or pick another policy just for this event. Once the event is saved, the box below the menu shows the terms with this event's real dates, such as the exact day the full refund ends.
Moving an event to one of your clubs clears its refund policy, because a club's events follow the club's own policies.
What always refunds in full
Whatever the policy says, two things always give the attendee their money back in full: cancelling the whole event, and rejecting a registration, for example because the address is outside your boundary. Every policy's terms say so, and Reject & Cancel in the approvals queue refunds a paid ticket automatically. In both cases the platform fee on those orders isn't returned to your payout: it covers the card processing Stripe keeps.
You can still refund anyone yourself from Financial → Refunds, for any amount, until 30 days after the event ends. The policy sets what attendees can count on, not a limit on you.
What attendees see before they pay
Every paid checkout shows the event's policy right above the Pay button, with this event's real dates, your additional details, and a line saying that paying means agreeing. Policies that refund less than in full (no refunds, a partial refund, or case by case) also need a ticked box before the card is charged. The event page names the policy under the ticket button with a Refund policy link. Each checkout keeps a copy of the terms exactly as shown, with the time and the buyer's IP address, and that copy is what governs their refund, even after you edit the policy.
Editing a policy shows how many registrations agreed to it. They keep their terms; your change applies to people who register afterwards.
When someone cancels
Attendees cancel from their registration page or the app, and they see what they'll get back before they confirm. Inside a deadline, the refund goes straight back to their card, and they get the refund email. After the last deadline, or under No refunds, they're told there's no refund and nothing moves. Giving back some tickets refunds those tickets' share the same way. Under Case by case, the spot is released and a refund request comes to you.
If an automatic refund can't go through, it lands in Refund Requests with the reason, and the attendee is told the organizers will issue it.
Decide refund requests
Refund Requests under Financial lists every request waiting on you, with what they paid and the terms they agreed to. Approve refunds any amount up to what they paid, prefilled with the full amount. Decline emails the attendee, with your message if you write one. The event's organizers get an email for each new request, and a reminder if one is still waiting after 3 days.
If someone disputes a charge
When a buyer disputes a charge with their bank, NeighborlyEvents answers the card network for you. We put the evidence together straight away: the refund policy exactly as it was shown above Pay, their agreement, the receipt, check-in, and every email we sent them. You get an email with an Add your evidence link, where you can add notes and files (screenshots of messages, photos from the event) until we submit. The same link is in the registration's Payment section.
Refunds are paused while a dispute is open, because the bank is already deciding that money.
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