Credit notes and refunds
How to fix or cancel an invoice you already sent, and how to record money you paid back.
Once an invoice is sent, it is locked. That keeps your records honest: what the customer received is what your books show. To change it, you add a new document instead of editing the old one.
Credit note
Use a credit note when the invoice was wrong, the customer returned something, or you agreed to a discount after the fact.
- Open the invoice.
- Choose Issue credit note and pick a reason.
- Credit part of it or all of it. The tax comes off too.
The credit note gets its own number and is applied to the invoice, so the balance goes down.
Refund
If the customer already paid and you are giving money back, record a refund on the invoice: the amount, date, method and reason. You can email the customer a notice.
Void
Void an invoice that should never have gone out. It stays in your records, marked void, with a zero balance.
Write off
If a customer will never pay, write off the balance. You give a reason and confirm your password. The invoice stays in your records as written off.
Then send a new one
If the invoice needs to go out again with the right details, send a new invoice after the credit note. See Invoice numbers and fixing mistakes.