How to refund a Stripe payment from a Zendesk ticket

To refund a Stripe payment without leaving Zendesk, install Tillwell, open the customer's ticket, find the payment in the sidebar and click Refund. The amount starts at what is left to refund; change it for a partial refund. Pick a reason (Requested by customer, Duplicate payment, Fraudulent, or Other with a note) and click Refund $X. Stripe makes the refund, and Tillwell adds an internal note and the tillwell_refund tag to the ticket.

Before you start

The restricted key in Tillwell's settings needs Write on Charges and Refunds. With only Read, Tillwell shows Stripe's message, which names the permission to add, and nothing changes. Edit the key in Stripe under Developers > API keys. In Tillwell's settings, Allow refunds must be on and the agent must be in Who may take actions.

Steps

1. Open the ticket. Tillwell matches the requester to their Stripe customer by every email address on their Zendesk profile, in lowercase too, because Stripe's email filter is case-sensitive.
2. Find the payment under the latest payments. Each shows its status, card and any amount already refunded.
3. Click Refund. The amount starts at what is left on the payment.
4. Change the amount for a partial refund. It can never exceed what is left.
5. Pick a reason: Requested by customer, Duplicate payment, Fraudulent, or Other with a note. Fraudulent also adds the card and email to your Stripe Radar block lists.
6. Click Refund $X. Nothing is sent before this click.

What happens after you confirm

A note looks like this: "Tillwell (Stripe): Refunded $49.00 of $49.00 on payment ch_... for Stripe customer cus_... Reason: duplicate payment. Stripe refund re_..., status succeeded. Done by Maya Lindqvist from this ticket."

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

Send the receipt afterwards

Customers often ask for proof. Click Email receipt on the payment and enter the address to send it to. Stripe emails a receipt when a payment's receipt address changes, so if you enter the address already on the payment, Stripe may not send it again. In that case use Open receipt and put the link in your reply. Emailing a receipt also needs Write on Charges and Refunds, and Allow invoice and receipt emails on.

Cap refunds by role

For example, admin, group:360004512345 with a limit of 100 lets the billing group refund up to $100 alone, and admins handle anything larger.

When the refund is refused

What it costs

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