Refunds, chargebacks & disputes

Because you are the merchant for your client payments, refunds, chargebacks, and the taxes on that revenue are yours to manage, the same as anywhere you take cards. BookNox never moves your money on its own, with one narrow exception for overpayments described below.

What your contract says about refunds

Your signed contract is the starting point for any refund conversation. In the standard BookNox contract, the deposit reserves the date and is earned on signing, a cancellation outside your cancellation window owes nothing beyond the deposit, and a cancellation inside the window owes the greater of the deposit or your reasonable actual losses, capped at the total. If you cancel without cause, the contract says the deposit and any payments made are refunded.

Wedding and web design contracts follow their own milestone versions of these rules, and force majeure has its own refund terms. The Customizing your contract terms article explains each clause.

Does BookNox ever refund a client on its own?

BookNox refunds a client on its own in exactly one case: an overpayment. If a client pays more than a payment's amount, for example by paying the same balance twice, BookNox refunds only the extra, automatically, from the account the money settled on, and emails both you and the client the amount refunded. Every other refund is your decision, made under the terms your client signed.

How do I refund a client?

Open Bookings and find the payment in the Payments column, then choose Refund. Enter the full amount or a smaller one, up to what is still held on that payment, and confirm. The refund is issued from your own Stripe account, and cards usually show it within 5 to 10 business days.

When later payments on the booking are still open, the dialog asks Also cancel the remaining payments? It is ticked when you refund a deposit in full and unticked otherwise. Cancelled payments are never collected and their reminders and pay links stop; a payment that is still settling is left open, and BookNox tells you which one and why. Your client is emailed the amount refunded and whether the remaining payments are cancelled or still stand, and you get an email saying what your client was told. A booking refunded in full with nothing left open is marked Cancelled, refunded, and its date opens on your booking page again. If a refund is later refused by the card or bank, the money stays with you, the booking holds its date again, and you are emailed once about it. Payments you cancelled with that refund stay cancelled (the email says whether BookNox told your client so), so settle the balance with your client directly, and a Google Calendar event removed at the refund is not put back, so add it yourself. If other bookings taken while the refund was on its way put that date over your daily capacity, the same email says so.

Refunds of your own BookNox subscription are a separate matter: see the Refund Policy at booknox.com/refunds.

When a client asks for a refund

Point the client to the cancellation section of their signed contract, which they received as a PDF when they signed. The section says what the deposit covers and what is owed at each point before the service date, so the conversation starts from terms you both agreed to rather than from memory.

The payment schedule after a cancellation

Remaining payments keep their schedule until you change it, so after a cancellation, waive each remaining payment from your Bookings page. A waived payment is never collected, its reminders stop, and BookNox emails the client that it was waived. A payment that is still settling cannot be waived until it clears or fails.

An overpayment refund example

Here is an example. A client pays a $2,674 balance by card, then pays the same balance again from an older email. BookNox refunds the second $2,674 on its own and leaves the first in place, and the notices to you and the client state the amount the client paid on that payment and the total refunded on it. Nothing else on the booking changes.

What happens when a client disputes a charge?

A client who disputes a card payment starts Stripe's dispute process, and BookNox is not a party to it. Under the BookNox Terms, you are financially responsible for chargebacks and disputed payments on your bookings, including any dispute fees Stripe charges, because the payment settled to your connected account.

Disputes are usually decided on evidence, which is why every signed proposal already records it. Clients have no refund or cancel button of their own inside BookNox either, so a request to undo a payment reaches you directly or arrives as a dispute.

Sources, read October 22, 2026: Stripe: how a dispute starts and what it debits from your balance; Stripe pricing: the dispute fee; Stripe: responding to a dispute with evidence; Stripe: a direct charge belongs to the connected account.

Evidence BookNox keeps

Every signed proposal carries an audit trail in its Signatures and audit trail section, printed on the PDF you and your client received:

• The signer's printed name and the signature itself, drawn or typed
• The time the client consented to sign electronically and the time they signed
• The IP address and browser the client signed from
• A SHA256 fingerprint of the signed PDF, which changes if a single byte of the document changes
• The full contract text the client agreed to, including your cancellation terms

Keep your own records beside it: the emails with your client, proof that you delivered the work, and any notes on a cancellation. Together with the signed PDF, those are the documents a dispute usually turns on. The client's copy of the PDF is the same file as yours, so both of you are always looking at the same terms.

Avoiding disputes

Clear terms help prevent disputes. Stripe's own guidance for disputes over canceled purchases is a cancellation policy that is easy to find or disclosed before purchase. Set a cancellation window that matches how you really work, describe each package plainly in your catalog, and use the payment schedule controls instead of side arrangements: postponing a due date or waiving a payment from your Bookings page keeps the record and the client's emails in step with what you agreed.

Sources, read October 22, 2026: Stripe: a clear cancellation policy disclosed before purchase.

Tax on client payments

Tax on your client revenue is yours to handle. BookNox does not calculate or collect sales tax on client payments, and its fee on them is zero, so there is no BookNox fee to return when you refund. If you receive a Form 1099 K for your card payments, the IRS says its gross amount is not reduced by fees or refunds, and that you can deduct those from the gross amount. Your own BookNox subscription is different: Link adds any applicable sales tax to it, and its refund rules are in the subscription article.

Sources, read October 22, 2026: IRS: what to do with Form 1099 K, gross amount and fees.