Offline refunds (cash on delivery)
Offer a refund that you pay yourself on orders paid by cash on delivery or another manual method, where there is no payment to send money back to.
An offline refund is for an order paid by cash on delivery or another manual payment method. There is no card or online payment to refund, so you pay the customer yourself. Offline refunds need the Pro plan or higher.
- In Settings → Return policy, select Edit next to a rule.
- Under Resolution options, select Allow offline refund.
- Select Save changes.
Rule presets have the same Allow offline refund option. A preset that you load into a rule sets it too.
Which orders
The setting applies only to orders paid by cash on delivery or another manual payment method, such as a bank deposit, a money order, a method with a name you gave it, or an order marked as paid in Shopify admin. Shopify tells ZenReturn which payment methods are manual. ZenReturn also counts a payment method whose name contains Cash on Delivery, COD, Pay on delivery, Collect on delivery or Manual.
On such an order, the portal shows Refund from the store in place of the normal refund. On every other order, the portal shows the normal refund and not the offline refund.
What happens
On a ship-back return, ZenReturn records the refund in Shopify when you mark the items received. On a returnless rule, it records the refund when you approve the return. The return page then shows the amount you owe. Pay the customer and select Mark as paid, as the article "Refunds owed by hand (cash on delivery)" describes.
If your store moves to a plan without offline refunds, the setting stays saved and the portal stops offering it.