Recording a Credit Note or a Refund: Special Cases

Need to issue a refund or a credit note to one of your members? This article covers specific scenarios, including:

• Enter a credit note for part of a sale
• Enter a partial refund for a sale
• Enter a refund for a donation

For the general process, refer to this article: Enter a refund or credit note entry

Enter a credit note for part of a sale

Example: Laurent made a partial payment on his membership (which he was paying in three installments), but after a few months he no longer wants to be a member. He will not pay the remaining balance.

You will need to enter a credit note entry (as explained in this article) to clear this group of entries.

• The membership costs $40;
• Laurent made a payment of $10;
• The credit note will be for $30.

In the accounting records, Laurent's third-party account balance will be zero.

Please note: online payment entries and offline entries cannot be grouped together. If you received a partial payment online (via an installment schedule), you will need to wait until you have closed your accounting period to clear the online payment receivable — it will then be converted into a carried-forward (C/FWD) entry, at which point you can group it with the credit note entry.

Enter a partial refund for a sale

Example: Céline paid for her online sign-up to one of your events through a ticketing form, but the event has since been canceled. She is requesting a refund for half of her registration fee.

Céline paid $80 online. The refund amount is therefore $40.

Automatic partial online refunds are not currently supported (only the "Refund all" button is available). As a workaround, you can:

• Issue a partial refund to the Buyer via an offline payment method (check, wire transfer, or cash);
• Then enter the corresponding book entry and link it to the relevant third party.

If the partial refund is processed offline using this workaround, the platform will not generate a credit note. You will need to issue one manually.

Enter a refund for a donation

Example: Marie made a donation to your nonprofit through your Donation Campaign on Springly. A tax receipt was issued following this payment. She is now requesting a refund of that donation. How do you handle this?

You will need to record a refund entry in your accounting records, following the steps detailed in this article: go to Accounting > Book entry, select "Record a refund / credit note" from the dropdown menu at the bottom of the page, or go directly to Enter a new expenditure.

On that page, in the "Account" field, select "Refund / credit note". A second "Select" field will appear: choose the "Donations and fundraising" account (or your custom donations account if you have created one). Fill in the required information and remember to link the entry to your member (Marie).

The platform does not allow you to directly refund a donation for which a tax receipt has been issued, since that receipt entitles the donor to a tax deduction. If you still wish to proceed, you must use the manual entry process described above. Doing so is your responsibility.