Refunds on an Invoice

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Refunds on an invoice.

Joya

Hi @alexlewiszarkos ,

The problem is that I don't see the category Refund sent for an Invoice in Wave. This is why I thought that creating the category Refund would help but nothing...

AmericanScreensUSA

I have tried putting in an expense as a "refund sent for an invoice in wave". It totally removes the original payment and records the invoice as overdue, as if the customer still needs to pay it. If I'm refunding against an invoice, it should just zero it out. No payment due. Zero balance. Why is it still showing due?

Myron

Hi @Joya, sorry for the confusion here, the Refund sent for an Invoice in Wave and Refund for Income categorization options are only available in accounts that have been migrated to the new version of Wave. If you are using the older version of Wave, and the invoice that was paid and refunded through Payments by Wave, the bookkeeping will be taken care of automatically. If you are using the older version of Wave and the payment was not processed through payments by Wave, here is an alternate solution to apply a refund to a specific invoice:

1. Delete the original payment from the Invoice.
2. Go to Accounting > Transactions and click on Add an income.
3. Enter the amount refunded as a negative number (i.e. -$400).
4. Categorize it as an invoice payment and select the invoice you wish to apply this against.
5. Go to the invoice, you should now see a negative payment applied. You will now want to add on the original payment again.

Myron

Hi @AmericanScreensUSA , when a refund is applied to an invoice, the Invoice would show the original payment and the refund transaction and display the net amount owed. I'm afraid that Wave does not have a Refunded status for invoices. This is why your invoice is now showing up as Overdue. To account for this, you can write off the refunded invoice by following the steps in this article:

https://support.waveapps.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000031243-Dealing-with-bad-debt-How-to-write-off-an-invoice

Dotty3340

HI, @alexlewiszarkos where is the "refund sent for an invoice in wave"? I cant find it i still have the old version in this account. Ok i logged in to my other account as it is on the new system. I can see it there. so my question now is. when will my Dottys Events account be updated to the new version. my other account was updated months ago.

Dotty3340

@alexlewiszarkos so I now need to know how to issue a refund in the old version. none of what I read makes sense as it does not link to the actual customer when you pull up customer statement it does not show the refund. What i did was - in the transactions page where is showed the money that came out of my bank I put it to the customer(had to put as a vendor which doesnt link customer and vendor together) and then I added a category "refund"

doing it by adding a negative line item makes it look like the customer still owes the payment. and if i manually add a payment to this then the books would show money that isnt there.

the only way I can see is deleting the invoice as if it never happened, but then you have to explain the bank transactions to your accountant....

ChelseaK

@Dotty3340 In order to account for refunds in the older version of Wave (and for this business, it looks like you're accounting for a refund which is not processed by Wave), here is a way of doing it!

1. Delete the original payment from the Invoice.
2. Go to Accounting > Transactions and click on Add an income.
3. Enter the amount refunded as a negative number (i.e. -$400).
4. Categorize it as an invoice payment and select the invoice you wish to apply this against.
5. Go to the invoice, you should now see a negative payment applied.
6. You will now want to add on the original payment again (i.e add an item as $400).

This way, your flow of funds is accounted for and your books will be balanced!