Apply a refund

A refund is the right tool when the customer keeps part of the sale and brings the rest back. The action lives on the Returns page — you open the wizard, find the invoice in step 1, and the wizard handles the rest. This page covers the entry path; the five-step wizard is documented separately.

Updated 4 May 2026·For v1.6.100·3 min read 🐞 #40 · v1.6.100 🐞 #62 · v1.6.100

When to refund — and when to cancel instead

Two different flows for two different shapes of “this sale isn’t standing”:

• Refund (this page) — partial. The customer keeps some lines, returns others. The original invoice stays on the books; the wizard adds a contra-entry for the refunded portion. Inventory moves item by item, with a disposition for each unit (back to stock, defect bin, dispose).
• Cancel invoice — the whole sale collapses. Every line reverses, the journal entry is undone, and stock returns in one shot.

If you need to undo everything, cancel. If only some of the sale comes back, refund.

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No partial cancel; no whole-invoice refund as a shortcut

These flows don’t overlap. There’s no “cancel just one line” option, and there’s no “refund the whole invoice” express button — for a full unwind, use Cancel. The wizard requires you to walk every returning line through a disposition, which is the right safeguard for partials but unnecessary friction when nothing’s standing.

Open the refund wizard

1

Go to Returns and start a new return

In the sidebar, open Returns, then click New Return. The five-step wizard opens with Invoice as step 1.

2

Find the invoice in step 1

Scan the receipt barcode, type the invoice number (INV-2026-04829), or filter by customer name. Pick the invoice and the wizard advances to Products.

The wizard at a glance

Five steps, in order, every refund:

1. Invoice — locate the original sale.
2. Products — tick the lines being returned; edit quantities for partial returns; pick specific IMEIs for serialised items.
3. Condition — for every returning unit, choose Resaleable, Defect, or Dispose. Counts must sum to the line quantity.
4. Defects — only appears if step 3 flagged any defects. Route to supplier, hold for inspection, or dispose.
5. Confirm — pick refund method (cash, card, store credit), review, post.

Each step is documented in detail in the wizard guide:

• Process a refund in five steps — the full walkthrough, with what posts to the books at step 5.

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Store credit instead of cash or card

At step 5, picking Store credit routes the refund to the customer’s running balance instead of opening the drawer or hitting the terminal. Same wizard, same five steps — only the settlement account changes (the entry debits liability 2100 instead of cash or the card terminal). Useful when the customer wants to spend it on the next visit, and avoids drawer reconciliation entirely. See Customer debt and credit for how the running balance behaves afterwards.

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What you'll see on the refund receipt

The thermal receipt prints the refunded lines with their original IMEIs and batch numbers (not internal database IDs — 🐞 #62 · v1.6.100 fixed the enricher leak), and the disposition cost on defect-egress lines now uses the correct FIFO unit cost ( 🐞 #40 · v1.6.100 shipped the fix). Both land server-side; no client setting to flip.

Related

• Process a refund in five steps — the deep-dive on each wizard step
• Cancel an invoice — when partial isn’t enough
• Customer debt and credit — how store-credit refunds settle on the customer record
• Release notes — v1.6.100 — the refund-side fixes shipped in this version