Payments and refunds

Sign in to the Dashboard, and then go to the Payments screen, where you'll find the full payment activity for your business.

For more information, see our managing payments from the Dashboard guide.

Alternatively, use the get payment details endpoint to check the status of a specific payment.

You can issue a refund (full or partial) either through the Dashboard, or by calling the Refund endpoints.

For more information, see Refund a payment.

Payment statuses (also called payment actions) refer to the various statuses that a payment goes through.

For example, a card payment might go from being authorized (AUTH) to captured (CAPTURE) before finally being refunded (REFUND). Each of these statuses will be displayed in the Action column of the Dashboard Payments screen, as well as in Payment details.

To view a list of all possible statuses and what they mean, see our payment actions guide.

Typically, you have up to six months to process a refund from the date the transaction was captured.

To learn more about refunding a payment, see our refund guide.

You cannot cancel or void a refund. However, you can charge the customer a new payment on the same card.

You can do this by using the Dashboard. To do this, either open the customer details page and click the Create payment button, or use the Unified Payments API.

Be sure to tell the customer beforehand.

You should provide your customer with the Acquirer Reference Number (ARN) of the refund. Your customer can then use this number to track the funds with their issuing bank.

You can find the Acquirer Reference Number (ARN) for a payment in the Payments section of the Dashboard. Click on the relevant payment action to open up the summary, and you'll find the ARN under the Action details heading.

Alternatively, you can find the ARN in the response of the get payment actions endpoint, as well as in the payment_captured and `payment_refunded webhook notifications.

You cannot cancel or void a refund. However, you can charge the customer a new payment on the same card.

You can do this by using the Dashboard. To do this, open the Customer details page, then click the Create payment button, using the Unified Payments API.

Be sure to tell the customer beforehand.

No. To process a refund, the original transaction must have been processed with us, and be visible in your Dashboard account.

No. The refund must be for an amount equal to, or lower than, the initial transaction.

No, as per best practices, you should always process a refund on the card used for the initial payment.

If the cardholder has simply changed cards, you can refund to the expired or canceled card. The issuing bank has an obligation to honor the transaction.

If the cardholder has not only changed cards, but also closed their bank account and moved to another bank, you should not attempt to process a refund. Instead, you should liaise with the customer to find another solution.

Apple Pay and Google Pay enforce using virtual card numbers, so that your physical card details are never exposed. The last few digits will therefore always appear to be different on the Dashboard, as these correspond to the virtual card's last digits and not the physical one's.

If you need to find a specific Apple Pay or Google Pay transaction on the Dashboard, we recommend performing a search using other details such as the payment ID or reference.

There are two different ways to do this:

• Perform a card verification.
• Store the expiry date in your database, then carry out a date verification before processing the charge.

In order to enable dynamic billing descriptors on your account, either contact your Customer Success Manager or email our Support team at support@checkout.com.

Once this is enabled, follow the instructions in our dynamic billing descriptor guide. Note that you can currently only set billing descriptors for payment requests.

The response_code is a five-digit numeric code that indicates the status of the payment request. Additional information may be found in the response_summary and status fields of the response.

The statuses fall within one of four categories:

• APPROVED (10000 codes) - the request was successful
• SOFT DECLINE (20000 codes) - the request was declined, though subsequent attempts may be successful
• HARD DECLINE (30000 codes) - the request was declined (most hard declines require the issuer or cardholder to fix any outstanding issues before trying again)
• RISK RESPONSE (40000 codes) - the request triggered a risk response, in which case, the status of the response (response_code and status) will depend on the action specified in your risk settings

To learn about specific codes, see our response code guide.

This means the payment triggered a risk scenario. You will need to review it manually, and decide whether to capture or void the payment.

Note that the system holds the authorization status for a period of seven days. It will be auto-voided after this period.

If you receive an error code, it means something has gone wrong with your request. The code will tell you the nature of the problem, with the usual issues being invalid formatting (like an invalid shipping address) and processing errors (like a payment method not being supported). To learn about specific codes, see our error codes guide.

Typically, this means the customer's card issuing bank (or the acquirer) has declined the transaction. For example, if the CVV is incorrect or the card cannot be used for online transactions. The cardholder should contact their issuing bank to understand what has happened.

You can find out about the other response codes in our response codes documentation.

Decline codes tell you when a payment can't be processed for a specific reason.

For more information, see our response codes page.

For more information, see workflow notifications.

To find out why a card was declined, sign in to the Dashboard and go to the Payments tab. This is where you can find all details related to specific transactions, including the decline reason.

To find out a refund's status, go to the Dashboard and look at the Payments tab.

Go to the Dashboard then select the Payments tab. This is where you can find all details related to a specific refund, including the Retrieval Reference Number (RRN), which acts as the proof of refund.

There are no charges to enable Apple Pay or Google Pay as a payment method.

The same pricing agreement, fees, and conditions that apply to your Checkout.com card transactions will apply to your Apple Pay and Google Pay transactions.

To learn about the APMs and wallets we support worldwide, see Online Payment Processing.

To learn about the APMs and wallets we support in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, see Payment Methods.

To change the billing descriptor, email support@checkout.com with your request details, for example:

• the account name
• the business name you're requesting the change for
• the value of the billing descriptor to display to your customers on their statements