Add/Process a refund to an invoice
We understand that sometimes things go wrong and in these cases, a customer may be offered a refund. OctopusPro allows you to effortlessly process refunds for your business whether initiated by fieldworkers or office users, our feature offers flexible approval workflows & efficient credit card processing. Say goodbye to manual payment mistakes & hello to improved financial management.
Table of contents
- Introduction to Refund Feature
- Benefits of using the Refund Feature
- Overview of the Add Refund Process
- Fieldworker Refund Requests via the fieldworker app
- Refund Processing
- Processing Refunds for External Payments
- What is the difference between adding a refund to an invoice and processing one?
Introduction to refund feature
With OctopusPro, you can add a refund for any payment or process one made for a booking, this allows you to avoid any payment mistakes or if a customer simply needs a refund for his booking or for the deposit they paid. You can easily view all refunds within an invoice to track the exact payment for each booking.
For external refunds added, like refunds with bank transfers or cash payments, you can mark them on the system by adding a refund to a booking with the refund amount.
But for refunding payments submitted online, through credit card, you can process the payment for it from the invoice actions section in the invoice history.
Benefits of using the Refund Feature
With OctopusPro’s refund feature, you can keep track of past transactions, and make refunds to a customer’s payment quickly and easily, without needing to manually search through multiple systems, or physical paperwork to get past information about a specific transaction.
All payment transactions are recorded and easily searchable within our system, so there is less opportunity to make errors when processing refunds. All payments and transactions are safe in the cloud, which allows you to handle customer payments and cardholder data securely.
Overview of the Add Refund Process
Adding a refund to an invoice
To add a refund to an invoice, go to Invoices > All Invoices and view the invoice for which you want to add a refund. On the Invoice details page, scroll down to the discussion section, click on Refunds, then click on Add Refund+
You will be redirected to the Add Refund page, you should then:
- Select the payment type, which is the type of refund submitted by cash, cheque, gift card, etc.
- Then add in your Refund reference, which can contain a set of unique numbers or letters, used as a reference for this specific refund, to get back to this refund later on if needed.
- Then add in your Refund reason, which is why you have refunded the customer.
- Finally, add in your refund Description, any additional information you want to add to this refund.
You can check the box if you want to thank your customer by email for submitting the refund.
Click on Save to add the refund to the invoice.
Viewing an added refund to an invoice
In the case that you have added a refund to an invoice and want to view it, you can do so from the invoice details page. Go to Invoices > All Invoices and view the invoice for which you want to add a refund. On the Invoice details page, scroll down to the discussion section, and click on Refunds, you will be able to view the added refund to this invoice including the date it’s been added, the payment method, the amount refunded, and whether the refund was approved or not. You can edit or delete the refund from the actions tab.
Approving an added refund
If you have added a refund to an invoice, and want to approve it as an admin user, you can do so by going to Invoices > New Refunds from your sidebar menu.
Search for the refund you want to approve, and then click on Approve.
Unapproving an added refund
In the case that you want to unapprove an added refund to an invoice, you can do so by going to Invoices > New Refunds from your sidebar menu.
Search for the refund you want to unapprove, and then click on Unapprove.
Deleting an added refund to an invoice
In the case that you want to delete an added refund to an invoice, you will first have to unapprove it first to be able to delete it.
First, unapprove the refund by going to Invoices > New Refunds from your sidebar menu.
Search for the refund you want to unapprove, and then click on Unapprove.
Then, go to the invoice details page, scroll down to the discussion section, and click on Refunds. Then from the actions tab, click on the delete icon to delete the added refund.
Fieldworker Refund Requests
Adding a refund as a fieldworker
Your fieldworkers can add refunds to invoices from their mobile application. To do that, when logged in on the app, from the sidebar menu, go to Invoices > All Invoices and view the invoice that you want to add a refund to. On the Invoice details page, scroll down and click on Add Refund.
First, click on the number on the top to add the refund amount.
Then, select the refund type, it can be cash, bank transfer, cheque, etc.
After that, adjust the refund date if needed, which is the date the refund has been submitted, and then add any additional comments if you need to.
Finally, click on Submit to add the refund to the invoice.
Refund Processing
Processing Credit Card Refunds
To process a refund to your customers who have submitted their payments through a credit card, you can do that by going to Invoices > All Invoices and viewing the invoice that you want to process a refund for. On the Invoice details page, scroll down to the booking discussion section, and click on Payments.
Then click on the Actions button and select Add Refund.
You will be redirected to the Add Refund page, to confirm the payment details and then click on save to process the refund to your customer.
Processing Refunds for External Payments
Adding Refund Details for Bank Transfers or Cash Payments
In the case that you have refunded your customers through other payment methods, like bank transfers, cash, etc., you can record that refund to the invoice by adding it.
To add a refund to an invoice, go to Invoices > All Invoices and view the invoice for which you want to add a refund. On the Invoice details page, scroll down to the discussion section, click on Refunds, then click on Add Refund+
You will be redirected to the Add Refund page, you should then:
- Select the payment type, which is the type of refund submitted by cash, cheque, gift card, etc.
- Then add in your Refund reference, which can contain a set of unique numbers or letters, used as a reference for this specific refund, to get back to this refund later on if needed.
- Then add in your Refund reason, which is why you have refunded the customer.
- Finally, add in your refund Description, any additional information you want to add to this refund.
You can check the box if you want to thank your customer by email for submitting the refund.
Click on Save to add the refund to the invoice.
Approval Workflows for Office Users
After adding a refund or submitting a refund for an invoice, whether by an admin user or a fieldworker, the admin users must then approve that refund from the refund list page.
Go to Invoices > New Refunds from your sidebar menu.
Search for the refund you want to approve, and then click on Approve.
What is the difference between adding a refund to an invoice and processing one?
Adding a refund to an invoice is used for refunds processed externally, instead of refunding a payment from the system, the difference between them is that adding an invoice just adds a refund to an invoice (for it to be recorded on the system) but processing a refund, actually refunds the payment.
To refund a payment, go to the payments tab in the booking or invoice, then click on the Actions button for the payment then press Process Refund.
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