Financial management
How to Process a Refund
Follow these checkpoints to keep refunds compliant, auditable, and stress-free for your customers. This page is printable and mirrors the workflow inside the LakiPay dashboard.
Before You Issue a Refund
- Confirm that the original payment status is “Captured” or “Settled”. Pending payments should be voided instead.
- Check whether the item was part of a dispute or chargeback—refunds after chargeback submission won’t stop the dispute.
- Review your internal policy on timelines (e.g., 7 days for digital goods, 14 days for physical).
- Collect the reason from the customer so you can tag the refund for analytics later.
Process a Refund in LakiPay Dashboard
- Go to Payments → Search for the transaction → open the detail drawer.
- Click “Issue refund”, choose full or partial, and enter the amount. The UI prevents exceeding captured totals.
- Provide an optional note (visible in reports) and submit. An OTP challenge appears for high-value refunds.
- You’ll see the refund as a linked transaction under the original payment with its own status timeline.
Communicate with Customers
- Send confirmation via SMS/email with the refund reference number shown on the dashboard.
- Set expectations: mobile money updates instantly, card refunds can take 3–5 business days depending on issuer.
- For partial refunds, clarify the amount and whether the remaining balance is still active.
- If you’ve enabled webhooks, trigger an automated confirmation to your CRM or help-desk tool.
Track, Audit, and Prevent Repeat Issues
- Use the Refunds filter in the wallet or payments table to review all refunds processed in a time period.
- Export the data (CSV/PDF) monthly and reconcile with your accounting entries.
- Tag frequent reasons (e.g., duplicate order, customer error) so you can address root causes.
- Enable threshold approvals by limiting refund permissions to finance or supervisor roles in the dashboard.
Need supporting reports?
Pair this workflow with the Exporting Transaction Data guide so finance can attach refund logs to every accounting entry.