How to refund a Chargebee invoice from a Zendesk ticket

By Jake Marsh · Updated

To refund a Chargebee invoice without leaving Zendesk, install Termwell, open the customer's ticket, find the paid invoice in the sidebar and click Refund. The amount starts at what can still be refunded online; lower it for a partial refund. Pick a reason and click Refund $X. Chargebee creates a refundable credit note and refunds through the original payment, and Termwell adds an internal note and the termwell_refund tag to the ticket.

Before you start

Refunds need a Full-Access Key of the Write type in Chargebee (Settings > Configure Chargebee > API Keys and Webhooks, API Keys tab). With a read-only key, the agent sees Chargebee's refusal and a message naming the key type needed, and nothing changes in Chargebee. In Termwell's settings, Allow refunds must be on, and the agent must be listed in Who may take actions.

Steps

  1. Open the ticket. Termwell matches the requester to a Chargebee customer by every email address on their Zendesk profile. If several customers match, pick one from the list.
  2. Find the invoice. The latest invoices are listed under the subscriptions, with unpaid ones always included. Use PDF if you want to check the invoice first; Chargebee's link works for 60 minutes.
  3. Click Refund on the paid invoice. The amount starts at what can still be refunded online.
  4. Change the amount for a partial refund, or leave it for a full one.
  5. Pick a reason. The list shows Chargebee's standard credit note reasons, or your own reason codes if you set them up (see below).
  6. Click Refund $X. Nothing is sent before this click.

What happens after you confirm

WhereWhat changes
ChargebeeA refundable credit note for the amount, refunded through the original payment. The refund comment carries the Zendesk ticket number and the agent's name.
Zendesk ticketAn internal note with the amount, the invoice number, the customer id, the reason, the credit note number and the refund transaction, plus the termwell_refund tag.

A note looks like this: "Termwell (Chargebee): Refunded $29.00 on invoice 1025 for Chargebee customer hb-4471. Reason: service unsatisfactory. Credit note CN-41, refund transaction txn_... (success). Done by Maya Lindqvist from this ticket."

If the sidebar says "Done in Chargebee, but the ticket note failed", the refund happened. Paste the text it shows as an internal note yourself. Closed tickets can't take new comments.

When a refund can't go through

SituationWhat to do
The payment is still processingWait until it settles, then refund.
Partial refund refusedYour payment gateway doesn't support partial refunds. Refund the full amount or handle it in Chargebee.
"The API key ... cannot do this"The key is read-only. Create a Full-Access key of the Write type and paste it in the settings.
No Refund buttonNothing is left to refund on the invoice, its payment is still processing, your role isn't in "Who may take actions", refunds are off, or you're on a new ticket or a user profile.

Set limits on who refunds and how much

SettingWhat it does
Who may take actionsadmin (default), agent (everyone), custom role ids or group:<id>, separated by commas.
Allow refundsTurns refunds on or off for everyone.
Largest refund without an adminIn the invoice's currency (100 means $100.00 or 100 euros). Admins have no limit. 0 removes the limit.
Custom refund reason codesYour credit note reason codes from Chargebee Settings > Reason Codes > Credit Notes, written exactly as they appear there. The refund form then offers these.

The tag makes refunds easy to review: a Zendesk view or report filtered on termwell_refund lists every ticket where an agent refunded from the sidebar.

What it costs

Termwell is $5 per agent per month on the Standard plan, with every feature, billed monthly by Zendesk. It has a 14-day free trial; Zendesk asks for a card at install. Every setting is in the Termwell documentation.

Termwell

Chargebee subscription sidebar: refund, pause and credit from the ticket, every action logged. $5 a month per agent.

Install TermwellAbout TermwellDocumentation

Questions

Can I refund only part of an invoice?

Yes. Lower the amount before you click Refund. Chargebee needs a gateway that supports partial refunds.

Who approves refunds above a certain amount?

Set Largest refund without an admin. Agents can refund up to that amount; anything above it needs an admin.

Can I record a refund for an approved request and see who did it later?

Every refund adds an internal note naming the agent, the amount, the reason and the Chargebee ids, and the refund comment in Chargebee carries the ticket number. Finance can trace it from either side.

Does the customer get the money back on their card?

Chargebee refunds through the original payment, so the money goes back the way the customer paid.

More Termwell guides

More Zendesk guides