Refund a customer via API with Shopify Checkout

There may be times when you need to incorporate refunds into you own application, or simply want to automate the refund process as opposed to issuing refunds via the Merchant Dashboard. You can use the Shopify API to issue refunds which will then be synced to Recharge.

Prerequisites

• Shopify Access Token
• A server environment to make authenticated API calls and receive the response

Obtain external ecommerce order ID

First obtain the Shopify ID for the Recharge for which you want to issue a refund. The Recharge Orders API ecommerce_order_ID corresponds to the Shopify order ID.

Make a GET to /orders/{order_id} to obtain the Shopify order ID.

Response

...
"external_order_id": {
      "ecommerce": "123496878536413"
    }
...

See the Orders API object for a full example of the response body.

Now that you have the Shopify order ID, you can move to the next step.

Calculate the refund

To calculate the refund, Shopify provides the /calculate/ endpoint to determine which line items and/or shipping costs are to be refunded. Pass in the line item refund_line_items.line_item_id

POST to /admin/api/2022-01/orders/{id}/refunds/calculate.json

Response

{
  "refund": {
    "shipping": {
      "amount": "5.00",
      "tax": "0.00",
      "maximum_refundable": "5.00"
    },
    "duties": [],
    "total_duties_set": {
      "shop_money": {
        "amount": "0.00",
        "currency_code": "USD"
      },
      "presentment_money": {
        "amount": "0.00",
        "currency_code": "USD"
      }
    },
    "additional_fees": [],
    "total_additional_fees_set": {
      "shop_money": {
        "amount": "0.00",
        "currency_code": "USD"
      },
      "presentment_money": {
        "amount": "0.00",
        "currency_code": "USD"
      }
    },
    "refund_line_items": [
      {
        "quantity": 1,
        "line_item_id": 518995019,
        "location_id": null,
        "restock_type": "no_restock",
        "price": "199.00",
        "subtotal": "195.67",
        "total_tax": "3.98",
        "discounted_price": "199.00",
        "discounted_total_price": "199.00",
        "total_cart_discount_amount": "3.33"
      }
    ],
    "transactions": [
      {
        "order_id": 450789469,
        "kind": "suggested_refund",
        "gateway": "bogus",
        "parent_id": 801038806,
        "amount": "41.94",
        "currency": "USD",
        "maximum_refundable": "41.94"
      }
    ],
    "currency": "USD"
  }
}

Create refund

You can use the response you received from the previous step to then generate an accurate refund. Use the Shopify /refunds/ endpoint.

POST to /admin/api/2022-01/orders/{id}/refunds.json

Refund within Recharge

The Order will reflect the refunded amount under the total_refunds property.

The corresponding Recharge Charge should now reflect a status property with the value refunded.

Charges response

...
 "status": "queued",
    "subtotal_price": "12.00",
    "tags": "Subscription",
...

The order will appear as refunded in the Customer Portal.