Refunds Overview

The Refund functionality allows administrators to refund a user's purchase and manage a user's order history. Automated refunds are also available.

Refunds are only available for training units and credit card purchases. Also, refunds are not available if the item was purchased entirely by the user's cost center. If a user has multiple instances of a training item in their transcript, a refund cannot be issued from the transcript.

To enable refunds for your portal, contact Global Customer Support.

PERMISSION NAME PERMISSION DESCRIPTION CATEGORY
Refund Training Grants ability to issue a refund for a training item while removing it from the user's transcript. This is an administrator permission. eCommerce - Administration
Remove Training Grants ability to remove training from other users' transcripts (training records) when viewing their transcript. This permission can be constrained by OU, User's OU, User's Corporation, User Self and Subordinates, User's Self, User's Direct Subordinates, and User. This is an administrator permission. Learning - Administration
Transaction Manager - Manage Grants ability to access the Manage Transaction page and also create and edit transactions. On the Order History Details page, the administrator can edit the order status, adjust prices, issue refunds, or enter comments. This permission can be constrained by User's OU. This is an administrator permission. eCommerce - Administration
Transaction Manager - View Grants ability to view the Manage Transaction page where the administrator can review the transactions that meet their permission constraints. This permission can be constrained by User's OU. This is an administrator permission. eCommerce - Administration

Workflow

The following is the refund or price adjustment workflow for each payment type:

  • Credit Card
    • ILT Sessions:
      • If a user withdraws from a session, the user receives a refund directly to their credit card based on the refund terms and administrator approval.
      • If a user is charged a no show fee, the fee is charged to the user's cost center.
      • If a price adjustment is issued, the difference in price is issued to the user's credit card.
      • If no refund terms are established and the administrator removes the ILT session from the transcript, no refund is issued. If the user withdraws, no refund is issued and any withdrawal fee is charged to the user's cost center. Transaction managers can manually issue refunds through the Order History Details page.

      • If a session is cancelled by the administrator, all purchases of that session are refunded, even for withdrawn users.

      • It is not possible to refund the purchase of Training Units.

Note: When canceling a session, the users who receive a refund are determined by the administrator who cancels the session. Only users that are available to that administrator will receive a refund. This group of users is determined by the constraints applied to the Sessions - Cancel permission for that administrator. To ensure all users receive a refund, the best practice is to cancel the session using an administrator account that does not have any constraints on that permission. Additionally, removing the constraints for the administrator canceling the session will result in all users receiving a refund.

    • Other training types:
      • Administrator can initiate a refund from the Order History Details page.
      • If a refund is initiated, a refund is issued to the user's credit card, minus any processing fees.
      • If an adjustment is issued, the difference in price is credited to the user's credit card.
      • Access to Training After a Refund - If the refund is issued from the Order History Details page in Manage Transactions, then the user can still launch the training in their transcript, even after the refund. However, if the refund is issued via the user's Transcript page by clicking Remove in the options drop-down, and then selecting the box to refund the training item, then the user will no longer be able to launch the training. This applies to Material, Online Course, and Test learning object types.
  • Training Units:
    • ILT Sessions
      • If a user withdraws from a session, the user receives a refund to their training unit account based on the refund terms and administrator approval.
      • If a user is charged a no show fee, the fee is charged to the user's training unit account. If the account has a balance of zero, the user is not charged a no show fee.
      • If a price adjustment is issued, the difference in training units is issued to the user's training unit account.

Note: When canceling a session, the users who receive a refund are determined by the administrator who cancels the session. Only users that are available to that administrator will receive a refund. This group of users is determined by the constraints applied to the Sessions - Cancel permission for that administrator. To ensure all users receive a refund, the best practice is to cancel the session using an administrator account that does not have any constraints on that permission. Additionally, removing the constraints for the administrator canceling the session will result in all users receiving a refund.

    • Other LOs
      • Administrator can initiate a refund from the Order History Details page.
      • If a refund is initiated, a refund is issued to the user's training unit account, minus any processing fees.
      • If an adjustment is issued, the difference in price is credited to the user's training unit account.
  • Inventory purchases for ILT sessions and learning objects do not receive monetary refunds. For ILT purchases, the seat is refunded, and if the seat is expired, no refund is issued. For other learning objects, the learning object is refunded. With inventory purchases for ILT sessions, no show fees are not charged to anyone.

For organizations with their own payment gateway, refunds are issued from their own merchant accounts. For organizations utilizing the Cornerstone payment gateway, the refunded amount is deducted from the current month's earnings.

Refund Timing and Errors

For transactions made via Cybersource, there are special considerations for refunds made through their integration service, which Cornerstone uses. Cybersource sets a refund window (this varies but is usually around 60 days), in which a refund can be made directly to the purchaser. If a refund is processed outside of this window, the cost center will be refunded rather than the purchaser. In the event of an error processing the refund to the purchaser, the cost center will also be refunded instead.

To check if the cost center received the refund, you can run the Enterprise Standard Report, which will break down all refunds by user and cost center. See Enterprises Report.

Course Fees

For courses hosted by Cornerstone, the course fees are not refunded. If a course refund is required due to a defective course, this should be submitted as a Global Customer Support case.

For courses not hosted by Cornerstone, the delivery fees are not refunded.

Emails

The following email triggers are available via Email Management in the Billing category:

Email Description
Transaction Price Adjusted This email is triggered when a transaction price is adjusted by an administrator. This email can be sent to a specific user, the Purchaser, or Price Adjustor.
Transaction Price Refunded This email is triggered when a transaction price is refunded and a course is removed from a transcript by an administrator. This email can be sent to a specific user, the Purchaser, or Refunding Administrator.