Refunding a Payment

Every now and then you need to refund a payment to a customer.  The first thing to do is to actually refund the money through your payment gateway.  Each gateway is different here, and uCollect does not have any options to initiate this transactions at this stage.  Usually you will log into the Gateway’s online console or dashboard, find the payment and refund it.  If you need help with this step please contact your Gateway’s support desk directly.

The next step is to record this in your accounting system.  Decide whether you want this to appear n the Customer’s statement.  If so, follow these steps:

1. Create a Credit Note for the customer.  Code it to reverse the underlying invoice that was raised, using the same account and tax codes.
2. Once the Credit Note has been approved use the section at the bottom to record a “cash refund”.  Enter the bank account that the payment transactions normally go to.
3. When the settlement comes through (it may be deducted from the other charges you received for that day) you may need to use Find & Match in the reconcile area and “Show spent items” to allow it to display the refund.

If you do not want this to appear on the customer statement in your accounting system:

1. Find the original payment that is being reversed in the Bank account.
2. Delete the payment record (in Xero: Remove and Redo) - this will unreconcile any payments attached to the same settlement item – so you may want to keep this on another tab.
3. In the Reconcile screen re-code the settlement transaction (assuming that this is the only component) to the Suspense Account.  If there are multiple components of the settlement then create a Receive Money to code the amount to Suspense and include it (instead of the original invoice) when you re-reconcile the settlement.
4. Create a Spend Money transaction for the refund amount – coding it to suspense.
5. When the settlement comes through (it may be deducted from the other charges you received for that day) you may need to use Find & Match in the reconcile area and “Show spent items” to allow it to display the refund.