If a booking has a paid or retained deposit and you need to give money back to the guest, start the refund from the booking details. On cancellation, Bokko starts the refund automatically in most cases (see below).
What happens automatically on cancellation?
For a paid deposit, the cancellation itself decides what happens to it:
| How the booking ends | What Bokko does with the deposit |
|---|---|
| You or your staff cancel | Automatically starts a refund of the full remaining paid deposit. |
| The guest cancels in time | Automatically starts a full refund. |
| The guest cancels late | The deposit becomes Deposit retained; no money moves. To return it as a goodwill gesture, start it here. |
| The guest does not show up | The deposit is marked as retained. This is a record-keeping mark; no money moves. |
| Automatic closure after the deposit deadline expired | Nothing to refund: no payment arrived on this path. |
The automatic refund runs in the background. If the payment provider call fails temporarily, Bokko retries it several times.
Start a refund manually
- Open the booking in the dashboard.
- Click Refund deposit. On a confirmed booking it is in the Payment section; on a closed (e.g. cancelled) booking it appears on its own, when the deposit is Deposit paid or Deposit retained.
- Enter the amount to refund. The default is the full amount still refundable (Available).
- Optionally choose a reason — Service issue, Goodwill refund, Partial cancellation, Provider error or Other — and add an internal note (up to 300 characters).
- Click Refund. The refund goes back to the payment method the guest used for the deposit and cannot be undone.
- 1. Refund deposit
Partial refunds
You can enter less than the full amount — for example if the booking was only partly delivered. You can make several partial refunds as long as a refundable amount remains. With some payment providers only the full deposit can be refunded, once.
Tracking refunds
If starting a refund fails, Bokko shows an error message. You can track refund status (Pending / Succeeded / Failed) on the Refunds page in the account menu.