There may be instances where you want to cancel a referral that has occurred in your referral program. This article will explain how you can cancel a referral to prevent abuse of the referral program.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.smile.io/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
What happens when you cancel a referral
If you detect that a referral may be fraudulent, you can cancel it in the Referrals section (Smile Admin > Programs > Activity > Referrals)Cancelling a pending referral
A referral is marked pending when an Advocate’s Friend has entered their email to claim their referral reward code, but has not yet placed an order with their code. Cancelling a referral in the pending state will:- Prevent the Advocate from receiving a referral code if the Friend places an order.
- Mark the reward code that has been issued to the Friend as cancelled in the customer Panel. They will not be able to copy this code from the Panel.
- For Shopify merchants, Shopify discount codes generated by Smile for the Friend will be voided so they can no longer be used.
Cancelling a completed referral
A referral is marked completed when an Advocate’s Friend has entered their email to claim their referral code and the Friend has placed an order. Cancelling a referral in the completed state will:- Cancel the Advocate and Friend’s reward code.
- Adjust the points balance for the Friend and Advocate if they earned points for the referral.
- For Shopify merchants, reward codes generated by Smile for the Advocate and Friend will be voided
How to cancel a referral
Navigate to the customer who’s referral you would like to cancel, and select Cancel Referral:

- If you remove a customer from your program, any of their pending referrals will be cancelled.
- If a customer is deleted, any of their pending referrals will be cancelled.
- If an order is refunded, any referrals associated with that order will be cancelled.