What's the difference between voiding and canceling an order?

Question

What is the difference between voiding and canceling an order? What are the reasons to perform one over the other?

When looking at an Order where the credit card has been captured online in the administrative dashboard, I have both the option to Cancel or to Void the order.

Both payment controllers fire the function that voids transactions with the payment gateway.

Answer 1

Void is in regards to the payment on the order invoice - to void the authorization, for instance - so that the funds aren't subsequently captured. Payments have to be refunded after capture and cannot be voided.

Cancellation, however, is when the order can no longer be modified. While an order payment might be voided a new invoice can always be generated. Cancellation of an order prevents any future change from being made to it.