Cancelling or refunding a pickup order

Stuff happens. You're out of the key ingredient. The customer never showed. The grill went cold. This article covers your one cancellation lever and what to do when it's not the right tool.

The short version

• Cancellation = automatic full refund. Tap Cancel (refund) on any order that's not yet Complete; the customer gets every cent back, including tip, via Stripe.
• You can't issue partial refunds yourself. If you delivered most of the order and want to refund only the missing item, email us — we process partial refunds manually for now.

When you can cancel

Cancellation is available on any order in:

• Submitted (just arrived, you haven't accepted)
• In progress (you've accepted, food not ready)
• Ready (you've marked it ready, customer hasn't picked up)

Once an order is Complete, the cancel button goes away. If you accidentally marked Complete and need to refund, email us.

On the web

1. Open the order from truckedup.food/owner/orders.

2. Click Cancel (refund).

3. A small modal appears asking for an optional reason. The reason is internal-only (we keep it for our records and may show it to support, but customers don't see your wording — they just see "Order cancelled, refund issued"). Pick something concise:

   • "Out of [item]"
   • "Equipment failure"
   • "Customer no-show"
   • "Wrong location"
   • or anything else useful for your records

4. Click Cancel + refund.

The order moves to History marked as cancelled. Stripe issues a full refund automatically — your customer's card will see the refund within a few minutes (some banks take 1-3 business days to display it, even though the refund itself is immediate).

On iOS

1. Open My Truck → Orders → tap the order.

2. Tap Cancel (refund) at the bottom.

3. Enter an optional reason in the sheet that pops up.

4. Tap Cancel + refund.

Same outcome as web: full refund issued, order moves to History, customer notified.

What the customer sees

• The order moves to Past in their order list, marked Cancelled by [Truck name].
• They get a push or email notification (depending on their settings) telling them the order was cancelled and a refund is on the way.
• Their card statement will show a refund line within a few minutes to a few days, depending on their bank.
• The reason you entered is not shown to the customer in the app today. If they're frustrated and you want to explain, the tap-to-call number on the order detail is the right tool.

Partial refunds (when you didn't deliver everything)

Some owners hit cases where the right outcome isn't a full cancel:

• The customer ordered 3 items; one is out of stock; you delivered the other 2.
• You substituted an item and want to credit the customer the price difference.
• You can't fulfill the tip-portion (e.g., delivery service issues — though that's a Delivery topic).

Owners can't issue partial refunds in the UI today. The simplest workaround:

1. Hand off whatever you can fulfill and Mark Complete as usual.
2. Email us with:
   • The order short ID (e.g., #A4F2)
   • The amount you want refunded (in dollars or as a fraction of total)
   • A one-line reason
3. We'll issue the partial refund manually within 1 business day.

Owner-controlled partial refunds are on the roadmap — let us know if this is a frequent need for your truck and we'll prioritize.

Picking a good reason

The reason is for your future self and our support team — not the customer. Useful reasons make it easier to spot patterns later (e.g., "Out of carnitas" appearing 5 times this month is a buying-decisions signal).

Bad reasons (avoid):

• Empty (we can't tell why later)
• "test" or "oops" (clutter)
• Anything you wouldn't want our support team to read out loud

Good reasons:

• "Out of [item]"
• "Equipment failure"
• "Customer no-show after 20 min"
• "Wrong truck — customer ordered from [other truck]"

Common questions

Will my truck's rating drop because of cancellations? We don't currently surface a per-truck cancellation rate publicly. Patterns of high cancellation may affect your visibility on the map in the future, but for one-off cancellations (out of stock, weather), there's no penalty.

Can the customer cancel after I've marked Ready? No — once you've marked Ready, only you can cancel. (The window for customer cancellation closes when you accept the order.)

If I cancel, do I lose the Trucked Up commission? Yes — there's no commission on cancelled orders. We only get paid when you do.

A customer is asking me to cancel an order they regret. What's the right move? You can absolutely cancel — there's no penalty to you. Just enter a reason like "Customer requested cancellation". The customer is refunded.

My grill broke mid-shift and I have 5 in-progress orders. Can I cancel them in bulk? Not today — bulk cancel isn't available. Open each one and cancel individually with a reason like "Equipment failure". Five cancels takes about a minute. (Bulk cancel is on the roadmap for exactly this case — equipment failure during a shift.)

The customer paid by Apple Pay — does the refund still go to their card? Yes. Apple Pay just routes the payment to the underlying card; refunds go back the same way.

Still stuck?

Email info@truckedup.food.