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Cancel an Event Registration
Cancel an Event Registration

Learn how to cancel an event registration with a full refund, a cancelation fee, or no refund at all.

Pete Zimek, CAE avatar
Written by Pete Zimek, CAE
Updated over a week ago


This article covers different scenarios and important information, including:


Overview: Canceling Event Registrations

  • Cancelations can be done for a specific attendee by going to the event, find the attendee on the Attendees tab, and click the Cancel link under the Action column (far right). This will bring up a "Cancel Registration" modal.

-OR-

  • If you're canceling multiple attendees from the same registration, you can use the Batch Actions > Cancel & Refund Selected tool on the Attendees tab. Just keep in mind that this tool will not work for multiple attendees across different registrations/transaction types.


Before you cancel a registration, we highly recommend reading through the information below. It's important to know what the system will do automatically, and whether or not you will have any additional steps to take beyond clicking Cancel.


Cancelations for Different Transaction Types

If the event registration was paid via credit card (resulting in a Sales Receipt), then a cancelation will result in a refund being issued to the cardholder and a Refund Receipt being created in QuickBooks.

Invoiced & Not Paid

If the event registration was invoiced, when you click Cancel you'll notice that the system defaults to creating a credit memo for the amount of the registration. If that invoice is unpaid, then the credit memo will offset the invoice, wiping out the member's debt. 

Invoiced & Paid

If the invoice was paid, when you click Cancel the system will create a credit memo for the transaction amount. This credit memo will remain on the billable party's account until it is applied to another balance or your bookkeeper issues a refund check. 

This gives you (or the member) the freedom to choose whether the credit should be applied towards another current or future open transaction on their account, or if a refund should be issued.

Important Notes:

  • The billable party is not always the same as the purchaser of the registration. Perhaps John Smith is the purchaser, but his company, ABC Company, is the billable party. You'd see the invoice & credit memo on ABC Company's account.

  • If credits are automatically being applied to open invoices and you would rather issue a refund (or vice versa), refer to this QuickBooks Online help article for steps to edit your settings.

  • If you've already issued the refund manually in QuickBooks and now you need to cancel the registration in Novi, follow the steps below for No Refund.

  • It is very possible that QuickBooks Payments or Stripe may "flag" you doing too many credit card refunds at one time for security purposes. If this occurs, you will receive an error in Novi, but you will need to contact the credit card processor for further information.


Charge Cancellation Fee or Issue Full Refund

Charge a Fee:

There is an option to charge a cancellation fee for any amount up to and including the actual cost of the ticket.  

The cancellation fee will default to the QuickBooks item the ticket was originally mapped to. If all ticket types are mapped to the same class, they will also default the refund to it. Admins can choose re-map the cancellation fee to a different QuickBooks Online Item (Product and Service) than the default.

No Refund (100% cancelation fee):

If you do not wish to issue a refund of any kind (or you've already issued the refund manually in QuickBooks), then make sure that this cancelation fee is set to the entire amount of the ticket.

Full Refund:

To issue a full refund, set the cancelation fee to zero.

Please Note:

  • If you've already canceled the registration in Novi without entering a cancelation fee and a refund has been issued to the credit card, QuickBooks Online will not allow a refund to be canceled once it is generated in Novi.

  • If you've already issued the refund manually in QuickBooks and now you need to cancel the registration in Novi, follow the steps above for No Refund.


Cancel Registrations Separately vs. Batch Action

Canceling Separately

If you cancel each of your attendees separately (even if they are on the same registration) separate transactions (either refunds or credit memos) will be created for the cancelations.

Canceling via Batch Action

If attendees were registered on the same transaction/registration, you can select their checkboxes over on the left side of the Attendee list and use the batch action "Cancel & Refund Selected" to do it all in one transaction.

Please Note:

  • This is per transaction, not per company/purchaser/billable party/etc. Notice in the example below all are on Invoice #3270.

  • The only exception is if you have any multi-seat tickets, where 1 ticket is set to be meant for 2 or more people. Those attendees will be canceled all at the same time, even if you just try to cancel one.


Process for Issuing Refunds via Check

If a registration was paid for with a credit card, but you want to refund via check, follow the workflow below.

1. Cancel the registration in Novi.

  • Find the attendee on the Attendees tab, and click the Cancel link under the Action column (far right). This will bring up a "Cancel Registration" modal.

  • In the pop-up modal, charge a 100% cancelation fee by entering the total dollar amount. There will be a message that no refund will be issued - this is correct.

  • Click the Save & Close button.

2. In QuickBooks, issue the check as you normally would.

Please Note:

If you've already canceled the registration in Novi without entering a cancelation fee (in step #1 above) and a refund has been issued to the credit card, QuickBooks Online will not allow a refund to be canceled once it is generated in Novi.


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