After processing a payment, mechants can perform post-payment actions such as inquiry, cancel, and refund. Go through the Development section to learn about how to invoke an interface in both sandbox and production environments.

Query payment result

You can query the status of a transaction order by using the inquiryPayment interface. Call the inquiryPayment interface when one of the following cases is encountered:

• No clear result of the payment result can be obtained.
• The payment process times out and no payment result is obtained. 
• A refund record related to the transaction needs to be checked.

Use the same paymentRequestId that is used in the pay API to inquire the payment transaction status. After Alipay processes the result, the payment or refund details are to be returned to the merchant synchronously. If no response from Alipay is received, retry the inquiry process.

Construct the request message

Construct the request message with the HTTP body as below:

{
   "paymentRequestId": "pay_test_1106_0002"
}

Handle the response

Process the inquiry response by verifying the signature of the notification. The following example shows a typical response for an inquiry request:

{
    "result":{
        "resultCode":"SUCCESS",
        "resultStatus":"S",
        "resultMessage":"success"
    },
    "paymentStatus": "Success",
    "paymentRequestId":"pay_test_1106_0002",
    "paymentId":"20190608114010800100188820200355883",
    "paymentAmount":{
        "value":"500",
        "currency":"USD"
    },
    "actualPaymentAmount":{
        "value":"500",
        "currency":"USD"
    },
    "paymentCreateTime":"2019-06-01T12:01:01+08:30",
    "paymentTime":"2019-06-01T12:01:01+08:30"
}

Note:

Here are details about the result status that might be returned for a query request:

• S: indicates that the inquiry was successful and the merchant can get the payment status from the value of paymentStatus.
• F : a system alert will be triggered after getting a resultStatus of F. The merchant's technical support team must investigate the root cause. If the root cause is fixable and the order still exists in the Alipay system, the merchant needs to retry the inquiryPayment API until a result of S is obtained.
• U: the merchant needs to call the inquiryPayment API with the same parameters multiple times after getting a resultStatus of U, until a result of S or F is obtained. After the maximum number of retries, if still no S or F is returned, the merchant must call the cancel interface to cancel the transaction.

Cancel the transaction

You can cancel a transaction if the transaction encounters technical issues during making the payment. The cancel interface can be used to roll back all the actions performed in the Alipay system regarding the specific transaction. The cancellable period is specified in the contract. If being out of the agreed cancellable period, the cancellation cannot be performed. 

Use the same paymentId that is used in the pay API to cancel the payment transaction. After Alipay processes the cancellation, the cancellation result is to be returned to the merchant synchronously. If no response from Alipay is received, retry the cancellation process.

Construct the request message

Construct the request message with the HTTP body as below:

{
    "paymentId":"20190612184010800100188820200355884"
}

Handle the response

Process the cancellation response by verifying the signature of the notification. The following example shows a typical response for a cancellation request:

{
    "result": 
    {
        "resultCode":"SUCCESS",
        "resultStatus":"S",
        "resultMessage":"success"
    },
    "paymentRequestId":"pay_2089760038715669_202775745075669",
    "paymentId":"20190612184010800100188820200355884",
    "cancelTime":"2019-06-12T19:07:11+08:00"
}

The following graphic shows the process of canceling the transaction:

Figure 1. Cancellation process

Notes:

1. Integrator might implement the store and forward logic in the gateway. If the cancel request reaches to gateway before the pay API request, the cancel request should not be relayed to the next hop. 
2. Here are details about the result status that might be returned for a cancellation request:

• S: indicates that the cancellation was successful.
• F : a system alert will be triggered after getting a resultStatus of F. The merchant's technical support team must investigate the root cause. If the root cause is fixable and the order still exists in the Alipay system, the merchant needs to retry the cancel API until a result of S is obtained.
• U: the merchant needs to call the cancel API with the same parameters multiple times after getting a resultStatus of U, until a result of S or F is obtained. After the maximum number of retries, if still no S or F is returned, the system alarm is to be triggered and the merchant's technical support team needs to be involved to solve the problem.

Refund

You can issue a refund by using the refund interface. The refund service is only applicable to a transaction that has been successfully paid and can be initiated any time after the transaction being paid and before the refund period expiration.

The refund of a transaction can be full or partial, that is, the refund amount can be the same as or less than the original transaction amount that has been paid. If a refund request encounters a failure, retry for a reasonable number of times and follow these suggestions:

• Use the original refund request ID and retry the refund request. Alipay supports idempotency if a merchant uses the same refund request.
• The maximum number for retires and the interval for synchronous and asynchronous refund should be configured. 

No fee is charged for a refund transaction. Your contract with Alipay determines whether the transaction fee charged by Alipay will be refunded or not. After Alipay processes a refund request, the refund is settled by transferring funds to payer's funding instrument. It depends on a bank's policy to determine when a refund settlement can finish. If a payer makes a payment with a credit card and rejects to pay for the credit card's balance, the rejected amount cannot be refunded.

Construct the request message

Construct the request message with the HTTP body as below:

{
 "paymentId":"201811291907410100070000001111",
 "refundRequestId":"201811291907410200070000001111",
 "refundAmount":{
    "value":"100",
    "currency":"USD"
 }
}

Handle the response

Process the cancellation response by verifying the signature of the notification. The following example shows a typical response for a refund request:

{
 "result": {
    "resultCode":"SUCCESS",
    "resultStatus":"S",
    "resultMessage":"success"
  },
 "refundAmount":{
    "value":"100",
    "currency":"USD"
 },
 "refundTime": "2020-10-10T12:01:01+08:30",
 "paymentId":"201811291907410100070000001111",
 "refundRequestId":"201811291907410200070000001111",
 "refundId":"401811291907410200070000001111"
}

The following graphic shows the process of using a refund service:

Figure 2. Refund process

Notes:

1. After Alipay completes a refund, the transaction cannot be canceled.
2. Integrator might implement the store and forward logic in the gateway. If the refund request reaches to gateway before the gateway getting the success payment result, the refund request should not be relayed to the next hop.
3. Here are details about the result status that might be returned for a refund request. The merchant must get a confirmative result status, either S or F for a refund request:  

• S: indicates that the refund was successful.
• F: indicates that a system alert will be triggered after getting a resultStatus of F. The merchant's technical support team must investigate the root cause. If the root cause is fixable and the order still exists in the Alipay system, the merchant needs to retry the refund API one more time.
• U: the merchant needs to call the refund API multiple times until a result of S or F is obtained. After the maximum number of retries, if still no S or F is obtained, the merchant should initialize an asynchronous refund request. After retrying the maximum number of async refund request, system alarm should be triggered and the merchant's technical support team needs to be involved to solve the problem.

For more information about when to implement the inquiryPayment, cancel, and refund interfaces, see Best practice.

More information

Alipay Developer Center user guide

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