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 with the Refunds permission (set on the Team page). The venue owner always has it; other venue admins need it ticked. Box office staff see the same three refund-method options in the dialog, but choosing Convert to donation or Venue credit (gift certificate) is refused for them with "requires a venue admin".
Converting a refund
From AdminEvents → the event → Attendees, open the ticket's actions menu and choose Refund Ticket. The Refund this ticket dialog opens.
Tick the parts of the sale that should become the gift. Ticket price and Tax (when the ticket had tax) start ticked; the fee lines start unticked. The Refund total line adds up what you've ticked.
Under Refund method, choose Convert to donation (the others are Refund to original payment and Venue credit (gift certificate)).
Select a Fund for the gift. It starts on your venue's default fund.
Enter a Reason (required), then click Convert to donation.
No Stripe refund is issued — the patron's card is never touched. Instead, Noctern records a gift for the refunded amount (the confirmation message states the exact figure), with the method shown as Ticket refund and your reason saved in the gift's notes. The ticket flips to Refunded and its seat goes back on sale. The new gift shows up in the acknowledgments queue like any other gift; no email is sent to the patron automatically.
Watch out
The purchase doesn't need to be linked to a patron record already. If it isn't, Noctern looks for a matching patron using the name and email on the buyer's account and creates one if none exists — it never blocks the conversion. Expect an occasional sparse patron record from this path; merge it later if a fuller record for the same person turns up.
The gift's amount is fixed at the refunded ticket value — it can't be edited afterward. If you converted the wrong ticket, void the gift from the Gifts ledger; voiding the gift does not un-refund the ticket or return any money.
A free ($0) ticket has nothing to convert — its dialog is titled Release this ticket and offers no refund methods. And if you tick an order's Donation (gift — whole order) line, Convert to donation is disabled: an existing donation can only go back to the original payment.
- 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.