When a Shopify order tied to one of your members gets refunded, partially refunded, cancelled, or returned, Buzzbassador automatically updates the order status and the member's reward to match. This article walks through how that works and how to set your Reward Processing Period to protect against paying out on orders that later get refunded.
How refunds and cancellations affect order rewards
For any Shopify order with a status that updates after the order is placed (refunded, partially refunded, cancelled, or otherwise unsuccessful), Buzzbassador adjusts the member's reward automatically:
Fully refunded order: the reward reduces to $0.
Partially refunded order: the reward reduces by the same percentage. For example, a 50% refund reduces a $20 reward to $10.
Cancelled and refunded order: the reward updates to $0.
Cancelled but not technically refunded: the order amount in Shopify does not change, so Buzzbassador still shows the order as fully paid. In this case, manually decline the reward to signify it should not be processed.
These adjustments happen automatically as long as the order status changes in Shopify before the reward has been paid out. If a reward has already been paid (for example, via PayPal), it cannot be retracted; this is where the Reward Processing Period becomes important (more on that below).
[ LINK: How do I decline a reward? ]
Order rewards in rewards-disabled programs
If the member is in a program with the Rewards section disabled, refunds and cancellations do not change anything reward-wise. The member's order rewards are already $0 by design (since the program is configured to track sales without paying commission), so there is no payable reward to adjust. The order itself is still tracked for reporting purposes, but the refund has no reward impact.
[ LINK: How To Configure Your Program Settings ]
[ LINK: How To Run Programs With Rewards Other Than Commission ]
Campaign rewards are separate from order refunds
Sales Campaign bonus rewards and Post on Social Campaign rewards are tracked separately from regular order rewards. The Reward Processing Period applies to all reward types, so if a campaign-qualifying order gets refunded before the bonus becomes payable, you have time to decline or adjust the campaign reward manually.
[ LINK: How Campaign Rewards and Payout Methods Work ]
Use the Reward Processing Period to protect against refunds
The Reward Processing Period is the buffer between when a reward is generated and when it becomes payable. Setting this to match (or exceed) your store's return and refund policy is the cleanest way to protect against paying out rewards on orders that later get refunded.
For example:
If your refund policy allows returns within 30 days, set your Reward Processing Period to 30 days. No reward becomes payable until 30 days after the qualifying order, by which point the refund window has closed.
If your refund policy is shorter (for example, 14 days), you can set the processing period to match.
The default Reward Processing Period for new accounts is 5 days. We recommend updating this to match your refund policy as one of your first setup steps.
Once a payout has been issued (especially via PayPal, where retractions are not possible due to PayPal's policies), there is no way to recover the funds. The processing period is your safeguard.
[ LINK: The Reward Processing Period: How It Works and Why It Matters ]
Notes:
The processing period only delays when a reward becomes payable; it does not delay the reward generation itself.
Members will see the reward in their dashboard immediately, but it stays in "Processing" status until the processing period elapses. I
f you need to pay a member sooner than the processing period allows, you can manually skip it on a per-reward basis.
[ LINK: How to force a reward to skip the reward processing period ]