How do I issue a full or partial refund?

Sometimes unavoidable things happen which mean attendees can't attend your event, for example, the weather affecting your event or personal reasons. Depending on your policies, you may have to refund a ticket at some point, but Helm makes it easy to issue a full or partial refund.

If you're using Event Protect you should contact them directly before issuing refunds. Do not start any refund process or make any statements about refunds until Event Protect has confirmed the circumstances are within the guarantee terms. If you want to cancel your event, please contact Event Protect directly who will guide you through the process.

If your attendees have bought Refund Protect they should contact Refund Protect directly for a refund.

How to issue a full refund (if you don't have Event Protect or Refund Protect enabled):

Select the event that the order in need of a refund is on
On the event's dashboard, in the 'Latest orders' section, click 'View all orders'. You'll now be presented with the order management page
Here, you can search for an order by customer name, order status, payment status, order ID or organise all orders by date
When you have found the order you wish to refund, you can click the eye icon to view the order to ensure it's the correct one (recommended) or click the arrow icon to enter the refund process
If you view the order first, to enter the refund process, click the 'Actions' button at the top right corner of the order then select 'Refund Order'
You'll now be presented with the refund process pop up where you'll see all associated tickets on the order and their prices
For a full refund, all amounts to refund should be correct - you can also choose if the tickets are to be cancelled or not by selecting yes or no from the 'Cancel?' field
When happy that the total amount to refund is correct, you'll need to select a reason from the dropdown menu - Duplicate, Requested by Customer or Other. Selecting Other will require you to enter a note to the refund in the supplied field at the bottom
Next you'll need to choose if you would like the customer to be notified of the refund via email using the dropdown menu - it's recommended you do notify the attendee of the refund
Finally, enter any notes you wish to add to the refund (the attendee can see this), then click 'Refund'
You're done! You have now processed the refund!

How to issue a partial refund:

Select the event that the order in need of a refund is on
On the event's dashboard, in the 'Latest orders' section, click 'View all orders'. You'll now be presented with the order management page
Here, you can search for an order by customer name, order status, payment status, order ID or organise all orders by date
When you have found the order you wish to refund, you can click the eye icon to view the order to ensure it's the correct one (recommended) or click the arrow icon to enter the refund process
If you view the order first, to enter the refund process, click the 'Actions' button at the top right corner of the order then select 'Refund Order'
You'll now be presented with the refund process pop up where you'll see all associated tickets on the order and their prices
For a partial refund, you'll need to adjust the amounts to refund (e.g. £15, adjust to £7.50 if you are only refunding 50% of the ticket price - you can also choose if the tickets are to be cancelled or not by selecting yes or no from the 'Cancel?' field
When happy that the total amount to refund is correct, you'll need to select a reason from the dropdown menu - Duplicate, Requested by Customer or Other. Selecting Other will require you to enter a note to the refund in the supplied field at the bottom
Next, you'll need to choose if you would like the customer to be notified of the refund via email using the dropdown menu - it's recommended you do notify the attendee of the refund
Finally, enter any notes you wish to add to the refund (the attendee can see this), then click 'Refund'
You're done! You have now processed the refund!

How to refund when your Helm account is empty:

If you've received all your payouts you'll need to top up the amount needed to refund in your Helm account using a card before you can refund tickets. It will alert you if you don't have enough funds and prompt you to enter your card details.

It can take up to 7 days for this payment to clear, but usually, it clears much faster. You can only top up your account on a per refund basis.

There is an admin fee for this to cover the cost of topping up your Helm account with funds. As you've already received payouts to your bank account, funds to cover any refunds are with you rather than us. The admin fee covers the cost of transferring these funds to your Helm account.

Please note: There's no fee to refund if your upcoming payout amount covers the amount of the refund. This is because the refund amount will be deducted from your next payout.

In the EEA (European Economic Area) the admin fee is 2% of the ticket price + 20p/20c. Outside the EEA, this is 4% + 20c. This percentage applies per order refunded ( excluding booking fees). For example, if you are refunding an order of £105 (£100 + £5 fee), you would only need to top up £100 to refund the order. If you wanted to refund 2 of 5 tickets in the same order, the admin fee would only apply once.

The top-up and admin fee are taken in the currency the order was made in.

Any refunds and top-ups you make will be reflected on your payout statement. You'll receive an email to confirm your top-up. You can also see this in 'billing & payouts' under the 'top-ups' tab. The payment descriptor will be "TOPUP FOR REFUND" but may include references to "HELM", "HLM", "PLYMOUTH".

Please note: Refunds can take 5-10 days to appear on an attendee's statement.

You won't be able to process refunds if your event is over. In this instance, contact support@helmtickets.com for assistance

Helm operates at the direction of the event organiser. Unless we are given prior notice confirming so, Helm will not refund an attendee on an organiser's behalf. Attendees wishing for a refund should contact the organiser directly.