This guide will show you how to automatically cancel and refund orders for customers that don't participate in ID verification with Shopify Flow.

This is a great way to save time, and reduce manual effort and risk. This is tailored for stores that use Real ID to verify customers after checkout. Verifying IDs after checkout is our recommended approach for verification, it gives you the most flexibility on controlling which orders should be verified and it has the least fricition to checkout.

We'll show you how to do this with Shopify Flow. It's free, and you don’t need any coding skills to set it up. Let’s dive in!

Getting Started

This guide assumes you have already installed Real ID and Shopify Flow on your Shopify store.

Download the Workflow Template

You can download your template to save yourself time from building it by hand. This link below will download the workflow file to your device. Then we'll show you how to import it into your Shopify store.

How it works

This workflows uses a Real ID provided trigger called Order requires ID verification. This trigger fires when an order requires ID verification.

This can be triggered by manually sending an ID check for an order, or one of the built in after checkout rules in Real ID, or even by a Create ID check flow action or Create ID check API endpoint.

When this trigger fires, it will provide the order ID and the ID check token so you can retrieve the ID check details. In the workflow, add a delay to allow the customer to verify their ID in a reasonable amount of time. Then when the delay lapses, the workflow cancels and refunds the order.

We highly recommend pairing this with the automatic ID check reminders to give your customers a gentle reminder by email to verify their ID by this deadline.

Import the Flow

Within Shopify Flow, click Import and upload the cancel-unverified-orders.flow file you just downloaded.

After importing, you should see a new workflow added called Cancel and refund unverified orders:

Activate the Flow

To enable the workflow, open it, and then click Turn on to enable the workflow. Your store will now automatically capture payments for low-risk orders, while leaving medium- and high-risk orders for manual review. This gives you time to verify customers, check IDs, and make informed decisions before fulfillment.

Customizing the Flow

You can easily customize this workflow. For example, you can automatically capture payments for specific email addresses of trusted customers, or set it to approve only orders below a certain value.

Simply add a new Condition in the workflow, which will allow you to exclude or include specific types of orders. You can filter based on addresses, customer details, total price, payment gateway and much much more.

If you need help customizing your flow based on your needs, please contact us.