Point of sale

Refunds and order edits

Edit an open order, comp items, and process full or partial refunds — and see where they show up afterwards.

Mistakes happen — a wrong item rung up, a meal sent back, a customer who changes their mind. Mavos gives you three tools: edit, comp, and refund. Every one of them is recorded against the staff member who did it.

Editing an order

On the POS

1. Open the order from Search → Orders (or resume an open tab).
2. Choose to edit. A banner appears across the top: Editing order #… — you're now changing the real order, and the cart shows its lines.
3. Add items, remove lines, or change quantities and options, then Save (or Cancel to discard your changes). Prices and any discounts on the order are recalculated automatically.

Two safeguards to know about:

• Permissions — staff need the "can modify orders" permission to edit directly; otherwise a manager steps in. See Users & roles.
• Two screens, one order — if someone else changes the order while you're editing it, the banner tells you the order changed on another screen and asks you to Reload before saving. Nobody's changes are silently lost.

Editing an order that's already been refunded

You can. Refunding one item no longer locks the rest of the order — correct it as many times as you need, and the refunds already issued stay exactly as they were recorded.

When an edit lowers the total

Saving a cheaper order does not send money back on its own. The order simply ends up holding more than it's owed, and you're told so: "Updated — $4.50 now overpaid, refund it from the Payments tab."

That's deliberate. Refunding is a decision about where the money goes — back to the card, out of the drawer as cash, by bank transfer — and only you can make it. Open the Payments tab and refund the amount the way the customer expects it back.

In the admin dashboard

Managers can also edit from Orders: open the order and choose Edit order. The same recalculation and safeguards apply.

Comping items

A comp removes the charge for specific items while keeping them on the order — right for "we're sorry, that's on us" situations.

1. In the admin dashboard, go to Orders and open the order.
2. Choose Comp item(s).
3. Pick the items and a reason from your list. Comp reasons are customisable per location under Settings → Checkout, so your reports group write-offs consistently.

Refunds

A refund returns money the customer has already paid.

From the POS

1. Find the order in Search → Orders and open it.
2. Tap Refund.
3. The Amount defaults to the full refundable amount — lower it for a partial refund.
4. Under Refund to, choose Original payment, Cash (it comes out of this register's drawer and counts against its till, so the till must be open), Bank transfer or Cheque (recorded only: you send the money outside Mavos), or a New gift card or Existing gift card (enter its code). Every choice except Original payment works whatever paid the order, up to what can still be refunded. After a gift-card refund the screen shows the card's code and balance, with Print.
5. Add a reason (optional but recommended).
6. Enter a manager PIN to confirm. Refunds always require manager approval on the POS.

About the manager PIN

Every PIN prompt on the register — the lock screen, manager approval, the time clock — is the same keypad, and every one of them takes a physical keyboard as well as taps: digits to enter, Backspace or Delete to correct, Escape to clear, Enter to confirm. A rejected manager PIN clears the entry so the next attempt starts from empty.

How often you're asked depends on the register:

• On a shared register, one manager PIN covers further approvals for about a minute and a half — so a manager approving two refunds back to back enters it once.
• On a dedicated register, every refund asks again, every time. That has always been true and hasn't changed.

Either way the approving manager is recorded against the refund, separately from whoever rang it up.

Refunds across more than one card

If a sale was settled on two cards, the refund is spread across them automatically, oldest payment first, and never asks any card for more than it can still give back. Gift-card payments are returned to the gift card first, and only the remainder goes back to the card. If part of a refund can't go through, you're told exactly how much did move — and that amount is what's recorded, so your books match reality.

From the admin dashboard

Open the order under Orders and choose Refund. The admin refund screen adds two things the register doesn't offer:

• Excess — a refund type that only appears when an order is holding more than it's owed (most often after an edit lowered the total — see above). It's prefilled with exactly the overpaid amount, and refunding it leaves the order reading paid, not partially refunded, because nothing about the sale itself is being undone.
• Choose how the money goes back — card, cash, gift card, bank transfer or cheque, independently of how the customer originally paid (a card refund can only go back to a card that paid the order). For Gift card, choose the Card that paid (when a gift card paid and still has value to take back), a New gift card, or an Existing gift card by its code; afterwards the card's code and balance are shown, with Print. If the order still has unrefunded gift-card value sitting on it, gift card is suggested first (you can still choose otherwise); a cash refund can be attributed to an open till, or left unattributed if it isn't coming out of a drawer.

Besides the header's Refund button, you can also refund a single payment directly — open the Payments tab, find the payment in the list, and choose Refund this payment… from its menu.

Refunding a payment taken on your bank's EFTPOS terminal

A card payment taken on your bank's own EFTPOS terminal is refunded back on a bank terminal, with the customer's card presented. It can't be refunded from anywhere else, and it is always refunded on its own.

• On the register, the refund screen opens on Bank terminal and says Present the card on the terminal, showing the card type and last four digits (with a choice if the order was paid on more than one). The amount defaults to what that card can still give back. After the manager PIN, Refund on terminal sends the refund to this register's own bank terminal. To refund the rest another way (or the card's value as cash, bank transfer, cheque or a gift card), choose Another way. A register without a bank terminal says so: use a register that has one, or the admin dashboard.
• In the admin dashboard, under Card, the payment is labelled bank terminal. Tick it on its own, choose the bank terminal at the order's location, and choose Refund on the bank terminal. Ticking it together with another payment isn't allowed: refund each separately.

While the refund runs, the screen says Present the card on the terminal and shows its progress. Cancel refund stops it if the card hasn't been presented yet. Close cancels the refund on the terminal; if the card has already been read, the refund finishes and is recorded on the order. A refund left waiting is checked about every 15 minutes, and you can come back to it with Check on it (register) or Show progress (admin). When it finishes you see the usual Refunded confirmation.

If the terminal declines, you see its reason and nothing is recorded. If the card was refunded but Mavos couldn't record it, the screen says so: choose Try recording again, and don't refund the card a second time. If the terminal refunded a different amount from the one you asked for, what it actually refunded is recorded, as a partial refund; Mavos never records more than was paid.

The payment can't be refunded through the API or by Mavos support; it needs the card at the terminal.

Where does the money go?

• Card refunds go back to the specific card that paid, up to what that card paid: through Stripe (typically 5–10 business days for the customer to see it), or, for a payment taken on your bank's EFTPOS terminal, through your bank at the terminal (see above).
• Gift-card refunds are credited immediately: back onto the gift card that paid, or onto a new or existing gift card for any order.
• Cash refunds are recorded against the till so your drawer count stays accurate, or left unattributed for a back-office refund with no drawer of its own — see Payments and the till.
• Bank transfer and cheque refunds are recorded as money leaving the business by that method, for orders that were paid — or are being repaid — that way.
• Credit to spend later goes onto a gift card (new or existing), so the customer has a real balance to spend. Store credit is no longer offered as a refund method.

Taking a payment again after a partial refund

If part of an order was refunded and the money needs to come back (for example, the customer keeps an item after all), open the order and use Take payment: the order shows Refunded $X · can be collected again, and you can take up to that amount by card, cash, bank transfer, cheque or gift card. This is for staff only — payment links, invoices, the kiosk and QR never ask a customer to repay a refund. No new receipt or kitchen ticket is sent, tips and loyalty stay as they were, and a booking that was released by the refund needs re-booking. A fully refunded order stays closed: start a new order.

Where refunds and edits show up

If a refund fails (for example, the original card has been cancelled), contact support and we'll help you resolve it.