When a patron offers to donate the value of a ticket they can't use instead of taking a refund, you can convert that refund into a gift in the same dialog — no separate steps, no money changing hands twice.
Before you start
Venue Admin or Super Admin. Converting a refund to a donation (or to venue credit) requires a venue admin — box office staff only have the plain card/cash refund option available to them here.
Converting a refund
From the event's Attendees page, open Refund this ticket on the ticket.
Choose Convert to donation from the three refund-method options (the others are Refund to original payment and Venue credit (gift certificate)).
Select a Fund for the gift.
Enter a Reason, then click Convert to donation.
No Stripe refund is issued — the patron's card is never touched. Instead, Noctern records a gift equal to the ticket's refund amount, and the ticket flips to Refunded with its refund method recorded as a donation. The new gift enters the acknowledgments queue like any other gift.
Watch out
Unlike a plain refund, this doesn't require the purchase to already be linked to a patron record. If the buyer was a guest with no patron record, Noctern looks one up by their name and email and creates one if none exists — it never blocks the conversion. Expect an occasional sparse, unlinked patron record from this path; merge it later if a fuller record for the same person turns up.
- Open a ticket for a completed order in the demo venue and start a refund.
- Choose Convert to donation, pick a fund, and read the "No money is returned" copy before confirming.
- Confirm the resulting gift shows up in the Acknowledgments queue.