we sometime have to process partial refunds. Problem is the balance at the end is not correct.
Let’s say person paid $100 and we refund $50. Then Infusionsoft puts on our invoice a $50 refund put also adds another $50 credit. So the balance at the end is $100 again.
How can this $50 credit be avoided. Our bookkeeper is not happy with this solution. Any help appreciated.
The credit is not automatic, but it is enabled by default. When you process a refund be sure to check that the credit is not being applied.
Thank you Dave. Can you please let me know where to untick the credit. I can’t find the option when I apply a refund. Cheers
I know what your talking about.
Lets say you have an order for $100 and they’ve paid $100. That section in the order record looks like this:
But now you need to record a refund of $50. Naturally, you click refund and begin the steps to do that. After selecting the type of refund you want to record or attempt against your payment gateway, you eventually get to the following screen:
Where I’ve circled in blue you should enter how much you want the customer to owe you after the refund is complete. In this case, it’s an order for $100, you’re giving $50 back for whatever reason, so that means there’s $50 left on the order that is unaccounted for. You have to either mark the customer record as having a balance for the order, or you need to actually change the original order amount.
If you want the customer record to contain a balance on this order (e.g. a good use case is a bogus chargeback and they haven’t returned the product), enter what you want them to owe you in the blue box in the picture above, then you will see this on the order:
That shows an order for $100, a $50 refund, and they owe you the balance.
If you want the customer record to not have a balance on this order (e.g. a legitimate partial return). You enter $0 in the blue box above. You’ll then get this on the order record:
This is where it gets confusing. That $50 has to go somewhere. You’ve told InfusionSoft to make the balance 0, while subtracting 50 from 100. So a “credit” item gets entered in the payments section for the missing funds. If you want to keep it like this, your accountant can classify these credits as “returns” which I believe can be amortized and all that jazz. Unless you have a lot of returns, I don’t really recommend bothering with that.
So if you just want to make the order look like it was originally for $50, but have the record that $100 was originally paid then $50 returned. Simply delete that credit item under Payments (this will put the balance back to $50) and then change the order total under Order Items so that it equals $50 instead of $100 (this will put the balance back to $0. The order record will then look like this:
It’s a bit confusing what’s going on here. Refunds are supposed to be edge cases, and we usually have particular desired outcomes when we do them. InfusionSoft has wisely given you a lot of control here for each situation you might desire, rather than assuming you want one thing over another.
That final image is what I do. Except I do the order in reverse. I adjust the order total first (which creates a negative balance), then issue the refund. This way no confusing credit item is created in the first place, the balance says $0, and the order total shows the final sum you actually collected from the customer.
thanks for the detailed answer. Will sit down with the bookkeeper and see what he prefers.
