Issue a Credit from a Payment

On This Page

• When to Use This
• What Can Stop the Credit
• Side Effects and What Happens Next
• Related Reading

Sometimes you do not want to return money to a customer’s card or bank account. Instead, you want to keep that amount with your organization so the customer can use it later. Issuing a credit from a payment moves some or all of that payment to the customer’s account as credit, without moving money.

When to Use This

Use this when a customer is owed money, and you both agree to leave it on their account instead of returning it. For example, they might move from a paid registration to a lower-cost registration and use the difference on the new order. If the customer wants the money returned to their card or bank account, refund the payment instead of issuing a credit. If someone other than the original payer should receive the benefit, do not move this credit to them; apply a manual credit on that person’s own account instead. If you need to return money from an existing credit rather than from the original payment, see Refund a Credit.

If a payment was posted to the wrong business unit, issue a credit from it, switch to the correct business unit, and then process the credit as a payment there. Do this instead of trying to move the original payment.

If you need to reduce the amount due on an existing registration, such as after moving someone to a lower-priced option, use a retroactive coupon, a credit, or a partial refund rather than a change order.

If a paid order line has already been paid and you need to return part of that money, open Payment Options and issue a credit instead of trying to cancel the paid line directly. This creates store credit tied to the payment. If the line later reopens on the invoice, you may also need a credit memo to bring the balance back to zero. Use the same approach if you already cancelled one line item on an order and Rhythm will not let you cancel the remaining line. Open the payment, then issue either a refund or a credit for the remaining balance from there.

Prerequisites

• The payment must be saved, and it cannot be voided or imported. Rhythm disables this option on voided payments.
• The payment must have at least one line with money still available. A line that was fully refunded or credited has nothing left to move.
• You need an open accounting batch in the payment’s business unit so Rhythm can book the credit. Because that batch’s entries may later be sent to QuickBooks, review the batch before you continue.
• The credit must use the same business unit and currency as the payment. You cannot issue it in a different business unit or currency.

1. Open the payment. You can find it from a transaction search, the customer’s account, or an invoice the payment paid.
2. On the payment’s page, open Payment Options and select Issue a Credit...
3. In the dialog, review the line items. Rhythm selects every line with money still available, fills in the remaining amount, and updates the credit total at the top as you make changes.
4. Untick or zero out any line the credit should not cover. In particular, untick any line for a store credit already used or an overpayment because Rhythm cannot turn those lines into a new credit this way. See the warning below.
5. Adjust the amount on any remaining line if you do not want to credit the full amount left on it.
6. Choose the Batch: where Rhythm should book the credit.
7. Enter a Memo: if you want to add a note to the record.
8. Select Issue Credit.

Result

Rhythm creates a new credit record linked to the payment for the total of the lines you kept. The payment’s status and total do not change. Only the amount still available on each line for a later refund or credit goes down. The dialog closes, a confirmation appears, and the payment page reloads with the new available amounts.

Warning

The dialog starts with every eligible-looking line selected, including lines where the payment paid off existing store credit or created an overpayment. Rhythm refuses the entire credit when any selected line is one of those two types, so untick those rows before you submit. If you see an error that mentions an overpayment or credit-usage line, go back and untick that row.

What Can Stop the Credit

• The payment is voided, imported, or in another business unit or currency than the credit. You cannot issue a credit from that payment this way.
• The order behind the payment has already been cancelled. Create the credit manually instead.
• A line's credit amount is larger than what's left on that line. Reduce the amount so it stays within the amount still available.
• A ticked line is an overpayment or a used-store-credit line. Untick it. Rhythm only lets you credit ordinary invoice lines from a payment this way.
• The credit's line amounts don't add up to the credit's total exactly. This should not happen in the dialog because Rhythm calculates the total from the lines, but it can happen through an integration.
• No open batch is available in the payment’s business unit.
• The payment and the credit ended up in different business units after a reversal. If an invoice and payment crossed business units, and the payment was later reversed and re-received in a different business unit than the original invoice, issuing a store credit for a cancellation can fail. The credit must be in the same business unit as the payment or credit it comes from.
• A customer tries to apply available credit during online store checkout for some integration-initiated orders. Applying store credit at checkout can fail with a payment-required error for certain orders created through an integration. This often happens because the order preparation still expects a payment type even though credit is being used. This is a known limitation of some integration-initiated checkouts, not something you did wrong.
• You're trying to move a credit to a different person. A credit on one customer’s account cannot be applied to another person’s purchase, even when both people belong to the same organization. If you need to split a different existing store credit into a smaller amount for one purchase, one workaround is to create a small storefront order for the amount you need, adjust its price manually, take payment on that order, and then use Payment Options > Issue a Credit on that new payment so a credit in the right amount appears on the customer’s account.

Rhythm does not email a receipt when you issue a credit this way. The dialog carries the customer’s email address forward from the payment, but Rhythm does not send anything to that address.

Side Effects and What Happens Next

The credit behaves like any other credit on the customer’s account. It appears on their account page with an available balance, and the customer can apply it to a future payment. You can also apply it for them, including to a different open invoice. Open the credit’s own Credit 360 page, choose Use/Apply, and use Pay More Invoices to search for and apply the credit to another open invoice. A credit issued this way returns to the account of the person who made the original payment, not necessarily the invoice’s owner, when those are different people. If you would rather return the money instead of keeping it as credit, you can issue a refund from the same payment. You do not have to make the same choice for the whole payment; you can refund part of it and credit the rest, and both actions relate back to the same order or invoice activity the payment covered.

Issuing a credit also creates a manual payment record behind the scenes. If you later need to refund that credit, refunding from the resulting payment sends the refund through your payment gateway, just like any other payment-backed refund.

If a registration was cancelled and this created a credit rather than a refund, watch for that credit to be applied automatically the next time that same person or organization has another order billed to the same account. If a later invoice looks like it was paid unexpectedly, check the organization’s open credits in Finance. This can also help when you need to move existing payment value onto a brand-new order: issue a credit for the payment, create or process the replacement order, and then apply the credit to pay it.

A credit memo you apply after a refund is different from this kind of credit. A credit memo only documents that a refund happened and cannot be applied to a future purchase, while the store credit this task creates can be spent later. Similarly, a credit created from one person’s payment or invoice is not directly transferable to a different person’s invoice, even when they share a parent organization. Apply a manual credit on the target person’s own Contact 360 page instead.

To move a credit’s ownership to a different customer record entirely, such as when a membership change shifts billing responsibility to a new payer, use the Update Records in Bulk tool from the Finance & Billing Query Center rather than looking for a control on the credit’s own page.

If you need to clear out old legacy credits in bulk, mass deletion is available for them. Because this touches financial records, verify the results in your sandbox before running it against your live account.

Related Reading

To see a customer’s credits with their balance, invoices, and payment history, see Review a Customer's Account or, for an individual person, Review a Contact's 360 Page. To pay out a credit instead of leaving it on the account, see Refund a Credit.