How to issue refunds

In this article, you'll learn how to refund a payment a customer made on a job, in full or in part. It comes up when a job gets cut short, you overcharged, or a customer paid twice.

To find a job's payments:

  1. Open the job.
  2. Click the Payments tab. Under the tab name you'll see the job's balance.
  3. At the top of the tab, Balance shows what's still owed next to the job's total. Below it, the Job payments list shows every payment with its method, date, reference and amount.

On a phone-sized browser window the job has a Finance tab instead, and Payments is a section inside it. An invoice's page shows the same Job payments list under its items when the invoice belongs to a job, and refunds work the same way there.

Note: To refund a payment, your role needs the Delete Job Payments permission. To see the Payments tab at all, it also needs Financial Data. If your role doesn't have Delete Job Payments, the refund won't go through and you'll see a red note saying your role can't refund payments.

Refunding a payment

  1. In the Job payments list, click the ⋮ button at the end of the payment's row.
  2. Click Refund payment. The Issue a refund window opens.
  3. Check the Original payment box at the top. It shows how the customer paid (with the last four digits for a card), the amount and the date, so you can be sure you picked the right one.
  4. Choose Full refund (the full amount is shown next to it) or Partial refund. If you pick a partial refund, type the amount to give back in the box that appears. It can't be more than was paid.
  5. If you want, add a note in Reason (optional).
  6. Click Refund payment. If you change your mind, click Cancel instead.
Refunding a payment from a job's Payments tab
Refunding a payment from a job's Payments tab

When it's done, a green note under the list tells you how much was refunded and that the balance owed reopened by that amount.

What happens after a refund

  • The balance reopens. Whatever you refund is added back to what the customer owes on the job and its invoices. The Balance at the top of the tab updates right away.
  • A full refund stays on the list with a red Refunded tag. It's kept for your records, but it no longer counts toward Collected. Once a payment is fully refunded, Refund payment no longer shows in its menu.
  • A partial refund lowers the payment's amount on the list to what the customer still paid. The payment's description records how much went back, along with your reason if you gave one. You can refund more from the same payment later if you need to.
Tip: A refund doesn't close or cancel the job. If the job now shows money owed that you don't plan to collect, that's yours to sort out on the job, such as changing its items or canceling it.

Card payments vs. cash and checks

How the refund works depends on how the customer paid.

  • Card payments taken through Stripe are refunded for real. The money goes back to the customer's card. The window reminds you that card refunds take 3–7 business days to show up for them.
  • Cash, checks and other payments you recorded by hand are only marked as refunded in the CRM. No money moves, so hand back the cash or write the check yourself. Full and partial refunds both work on these.
Tip: If you refund a card payment straight from your Stripe dashboard instead, you don't need to do anything in the CRM. The refund shows up on the payment here by itself.
Note: A card payment can't be taken off the list with Remove. Refund it instead, and the balance reopens by that amount.

On the phone app

It works the same way in the app.

  1. Open the job and tap Payments.
  2. Tap the ⋮ next to the payment.
  3. In the Payment sheet, tap Refund payment.
  4. In the Issue a refund sheet, pick Full refund or Partial refund (type the amount for a partial one), add a reason if you like, and tap Refund payment.

You can also refund from an invoice's Payments section in the app, using the same sheet. On a job, Refund payment only shows in the sheet when your role has the Delete Job Payments permission.

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