Refunds and credits
Overview
On Blink, you can process refunds for card transactions from the Recent Transactions and Blink card transactions Reporting sections. You can also enable credit payments for your account.
Refunds
Process a refund
To refund a card transaction taken on Blink today, whether via Request a payment, Take a payment, or Blink page, please use the Recent Blink transactions option.
If you need to refund or view the entire history of transactions taken on Blink or via an integration, please use Blink card transactions.
You can navigate to either of the pages and select the transaction that you want to refund by using the available filtering options. Once you've located the transaction, click on the "Action" button and select "Refund" from the options displayed.
A pop-up message will appear giving you the option to choose the amount you wish to refund, you can refund up to 100%. Click on Refund transaction to complete.
A refund cannot be cancelled.
Users with the level Payment Tier 2 can’t process refunds. Find out more about user levels in our user guide.
Process a credit payment/Create a credit payment link
A credit transaction is when a payment is made to a customer that is unrelated to a previous payment. This means that unlike a refund, the amount is not limited to the value of the original transaction or a specific card.
Due to the potential risks associated with this feature, this feature is not available by default.
To activate it, please contact the Support team to request this option be enabled for your account, and specify if you want to limit the credit payments by MID, currency, or amount.
Credit transactions are available on the virtual terminal, paylinks and API.
Enabling credit payments and setting permissions
Each blink page must be enabled separately, and the user must choose which payment methods to enable CREDIT payments on (VT, Payment link and API), which currencies to enable, and the amount limit per currency.
Only the account owner user can edit these settings
Navigate to the “Payment preferences” page and select the “View allowed merchant accounts” button under the “Credit transactions” section. This will display a popup with a list of all the blink pages within your Blink account.
Select the toggle at the beginning of the line to enable CREDIT payments for a specific blink page.
Next, select the payment methods that you want CREDIT payments to be available for (VT, Payment link and API).
Then select the “Edit permissions” button.
This will display a popup with a list of all the currencies available on the selected blink page, and an optional field to specify an amount limit for each currency (by default, the amount limit field is set to “unlimited”).
Finally, select “Save settings” on both popup windows.
Making a credit payment on the Virtual Terminal
Navigate to the Take a Payment page and select the desired Merchant ID.
Then, choose the CREDIT option in the transaction type dropdown menu.
Enter the customer's full name, email, and transaction reference. (You can also add a note here, which will appear on both the customer and merchant receipts)
If you have multiple currencies enabled on your account, select the currency you want to use by clicking on its symbol.
Finally, enter the payment amount you wish to make, fill in the card and address details and click the Pay button.
When you make a credit transaction, an iframe will pop up to confirm it.
After the payment is completed successfully, both your customer and the merchant will receive a receipt.
On the transaction history, the payment will be displayed with a reference of Blink - CREDIT, and if it is successful, it will show a status of Captured (RF).
If the “notify account owner” option is enabled, the account owner will receive a separate copy of the merchant receipt once the payment has been successfully processed, with the email subject showing the name of the user who made the payment.
Sending a credit payment link
Navigate to the Request a Payment page and select the desired Merchant ID.
Then, choose the CREDIT option at the transaction type dropdown menu.
Enter the customer's full name, email/number and transaction reference.
If you have multiple currencies enabled on your account, select the currency you want to use by clicking on its symbol.
Then enter the payment amount you wish to make
Finally, add a note to explain the reason of the CREDIT which will appear on both the customer and merchant receipts, and send/generate the payment link
CREDIT payment links are set to expire after 7 days by default – this setting can be changed if desired
When you make a credit payment link, an iframe will pop up to confirm it.
After the payment is completed successfully, both your customer and the merchant will receive a receipt.
On the transaction history, the payment will be displayed with a reference of Blink - CREDIT, and if it is successful, it will show a status of Captured (RF).
If the “notify account owner” option is enabled, the account owner will receive a copy of the CREDIT payment link once created, which will display the name of the user who created the payment link in the email subject
The account owner will also receive a separate copy of the merchant receipt once the payment has been successfully processed, with the email subject showing the name of the user who made the payment.
Enabling access for sub-users
Once CREDIT has been enabled, the lead account owner user can process credit payments.
To enable this feature for other sub-users, navigate to the “User preferences” page and select “Edit” for the desired user.
In the “Edit permissions” popup there is a toggle named “Allow CREDIT transactions”.
Once the lead account owner user enables the credit feature for the other lead users, those users can then activate the credit capability for other sub-users.
However, users with Supervisor, Accounts, Support, and Payment Tier 1 and 2 levels only have the ability to make a credit payment and cannot enable it for others.
“Notify account owner” setting
This setting allows the lead account owner user to be notified every time a credit payment or payment link is created.
Navigate to the “Payment preferences” page and select the “View allowed merchant accounts” button under the “Credit transactions” section.
At the bottom of the list of blink pages, there is a tickbox named “Notify account owner”.
If ticked ON, this will send a copy of the receipt to the account owners email address when a CREDIT payment is successfully made. (The name of the user who made the payment will be displayed in the email subject)
It will also send a copy of the payment link email to the account owner email address if a CREDIT payment link is created, and display the name of the user who created the payment link in the email subject.
FAQs
Q: Once I’ve entered the customer’s card details for a refund, how long will it take for them to receive the money?
A: Refunds can take up to 14 days to reach the customer. The exact timing depends on the card issuer (i.e. the customer’s bank), so it may vary.