What This Does
When a payment was taken by mistake or needs to be backed out, Rhythm gives you two ways to undo it. Voiding cancels the payment in place, makes the related invoices due again, and, for card or bank charges, tries to return the money through your payment processor. Reversing leaves the original payment in its batch and creates a separate negative payment in a batch you choose, which helps when the original batch is already closed or posted and should not be changed directly.
Voiding does not delete the payment. The payment record stays on file with a Void status, which is different from deleting it later; see Correct or Delete a Saved Payment for that separate step. When you void a card or bank charge, Rhythm sends the money back to the same card or bank account by default. If you issue the amount as store credit instead, the value stays on the customer's account as credit rather than returning to the card or bank account, so confirm the outcome you want before you proceed.
Tip
"Reversed" can mean two different things, so it helps to keep them separate. In Rhythm, reversing a payment is an action you take on a saved payment. Your payment processor can also reverse a card authorization outside Rhythm, such as after a failed checkout attempt. That reversed authorization may appear temporarily on the cardholder's card, or it may look like a second pending charge, even though only one payment actually settles. If you see a negative amount in your payment gateway's history, it usually means an authorization was voided immediately instead of captured, not that Rhythm issued a refund. Rhythm used to validate a saved card by authorizing it and then immediately reversing that authorization. That method has been replaced with a more efficient authorization check that does not need a reversal step, so you may not see that pattern on newer saved cards.
When to Use It (and Not)
Use voiding when the payment's batch is still open and you want to cancel the payment cleanly in place. Use reversing when the payment's batch has already been closed, downloaded, or posted, such as when you find a bounced check after the month it was recorded in has closed. Reversing after a batch has posted or downloaded keeps your accounting trail intact, while voiding the original payment in place at that point can disrupt reconciliation. If a payment has posted subledger entries, do not void or delete it in place; reverse it so Rhythm keeps the original entries and creates a separate offsetting entry.
If the payment's own batch is not open and you still want to void instead of reverse, move the payment to an open batch first. Open the payment, go to Payment Options › Move to Another Batch, choose an open batch, and then void it from there.
If you need to return money to a customer without undoing the payment record itself, use the article on issuing a refund instead. If you want to remove the payment record entirely, void it and then delete it; see Correct or Delete a Saved Payment. When a mistaken payment is tied to an order, canceling the order is often cleaner than refunding the payment and then writing off the balance left behind.
Voiding and reversing work on a completed sale or settled charge, not on a standalone authorization. Rhythm Payments cannot void an authorization transaction and returns an error if you try. Similarly, you cannot remove an ACH payment that has already settled in Rhythm Payments by trying to cancel it from the payments dashboard.
Reversing is not available for card or electronic check payments, whether the batch is open or closed. See Variants below for what to do with those payments instead. If you are cleaning up duplicate or otherwise invalid extra payment transactions, refund the extra transactions to resolve them.
Prerequisites
- You can open the payment's page in Finance & Billing › Transactions.
- The payment must not already be voided or reversed, and it must have no refunds or credits against it.
- Any overpayment credit the payment created must still be unspent and in an open batch.
- A card charge must have settled before you can void it; partial voids are not supported. If you only need to remove part of a charge, such as a processing fee, wait for settlement and use a refund or credit instead.
Steps
- Go to Finance & Billing › Transactions and open the payment.
- From Payment Options, choose Void to cancel it in place, or Reverse to back it out with a new negative payment.
- For Void: confirm when Rhythm asks whether you are sure you want to void the payment.
- For Reverse: choose the open Batch: where the reversal should land, add a Memo: if you want one, and select Reverse Payment.
flowchart TD
A[Mistaken payment] --> B{Is its batch still open?}
B -->|Yes| C[Void: cancels in place, refunds card/bank automatically]
B -->|No| D[Reverse: negative payment in a batch you choose]
C --> E[Invoice owes again]
D --> E
Variants
- A card or bank charge being voided. After the void is saved, Rhythm automatically tries to refund the money through your payment processor. If the charge has not settled yet, there is nothing to refund, so voiding reverses the authorization at the processor because the funds were never transferred. If the automatic refund fails after settlement, the payment still stays void, but the money has not been returned yet, so you need to resolve the refund separately with your processor.
- A card or electronic check payment you need to back out. Use the refund action instead of reversing, because reversing is not available for electronic payments. A refund returns the money and leaves the invoice available to be written off if you do not expect to collect it again.
- A returned or NSF electronic check (ACH). Void the payment instead of trying to reverse it, because reversing is not available for electronic payments. Voiding restores the invoice's balance due so you can collect a replacement payment. A returned ACH does not reopen its invoice or reverse the payment's state on its own just because the bank rejected it; voiding is the manual step that does that. Keep in mind that voiding also tries to refund the same bank account that just rejected the money, which usually is not what you want. Rhythm does not automatically void or reverse a failed or returned ACH payment for you, so you decide how and when to correct it. Some staff avoid the automatic-refund issue by canceling the related order, choosing not to send an electronic refund, and reprocessing a new payment after the payer updates their bank details, though that is not the only way to handle it. If no payment actually completed for a returned ACH, the related order typically stays in Awaiting Payment and the invoice stays Open, so you can usually collect payment again on that same open invoice without any special correction. Once the return has fully settled and any hold your processor placed has cleared, the payer can repay the reopened invoice using the same payment method.
- An ACH payment with the wrong bank account details, discovered after it settled. You cannot correct the settled payment in place. Cancel the related order and reprocess payment using the corrected account information.
- A returned electronic payment where Void seems to work but Reverse doesn't, or the other way around. This is expected, not inconsistent. Voiding is available for electronic payments, but reversing is not, regardless of the payment's state.
- A payment already tied to a posted batch. You cannot change its payment method or type after the fact to make it eligible for reversal. Use a refund instead, as described above.
- Correcting a payment recorded with the wrong payment method or type, such as one entered as cash when it should have been a check. Void or reverse the payment so its invoice reopens, then receive a new payment using the correct method.
- An offline check payment that needs correcting. A check payment does not go through Rhythm Payments, so you can correct it entirely inside Rhythm. Void the mistaken payment, then record a new offline payment with the right details.
- A misapplied payment in a posted batch that created an overpayment credit on the wrong record. Refund the original payment instead of reversing it. Refunding backs out the credit that the misapplied payment created.
- A returned e-check where the void action itself fails. Issue a refund without an electronic refund instead. This increases the invoice's balance due again, just as a successful void would, so you can collect a replacement payment without Rhythm trying to move money electronically.
- A payment reversal inside a lockbox batch. The batch's total or deposit amount may not reflect the reversal immediately. Repost the batch afterward so its totals pick up the change.
- Correcting many payments at once. Bulk correction is rarely a single action. A closed batch must be reopened before its transactions can change, and an electronic payment generally needs a refund or cancellation rather than a reversal. Canceling orders that already have payments attached can also affect more than the payment, so review each one instead of assuming a script will handle every case the same way. If you are correcting many affected paid orders, cancel them one at a time and choose an archive batch as the target during cancellation. That approach is safer than a bulk script, and you can archive that batch afterward.
Result
- After a void, the payment shows a Void status, and the invoices it paid show a balance due again.
- After a reversal, the original payment shows a Reversed status, and a new negative payment appears in the batch you chose. The reversal also reduces the invoices' paid amount back down, whether the original payment was applied to one invoice or split across several.
Voiding a payment is not the same as canceling its order. Voiding the payment does not use the order cancellation process to issue a refund, and the order and invoice stay in place. That means you can collect a new payment against the same invoice instead of starting over. Voided payments are not removed from your records. They stay visible in All Transactions and can still appear in their original batch's history or totals because Rhythm keeps finance records for audit purposes instead of deleting them.
In some cases, Rhythm treated a payment as voided but left it linked to its invoice. The invoice then still showed Paid, and the invoice's own void action failed with a related-transactions error. This has been addressed for invoices going forward, but the fix does not automatically correct older invoices affected before the change. If you run into this on an older invoice, contact Support because it may need manual correction or an internal note explaining that the invoice is no longer valid.
Side Effects
Voiding or reversing a payment does not automatically update memberships, orders, or installment plans tied to it. If the payment covered something like a membership or event registration, check that related record separately to see whether it also needs attention.
On an order with a quantity greater than one, reversing payment for just one item does not, by itself, return the whole order, its invoice, or any related membership state to unpaid. Cancel the original order if you need everything to follow suit. Voiding a membership application order's transaction cancels that transaction but can leave the related invoice open, so the invoice can still expect payment and appear on balance statements. Canceling the entire order cancels the invoice with it.
An invoice or order can still show an outstanding balance even after the related payment is visible again. Correcting that display sometimes takes a manual adjustment rather than resolving itself automatically. If the payment created an overpayment credit, reversing the payment does not automatically remove that credit. It can stay on the account, and you need to handle it separately if you do not want to leave it there. When an existing order cannot be canceled and you still need to correct a membership's price, you can sometimes reach the right financial outcome by refunding or reversing part of the payment or credit and then creating a new order for the difference, instead of trying to force a cancellation through.
If you void or reverse a payment after the related commerce order was deleted, the void or reversal can fail because the transaction still references that missing order. Contact Support to have the order restored before trying again.
If a cancelled registration should have generated a cancellation-fee invoice and did not, you can reconcile that by hand instead of waiting for one to appear. Apply a credit memo to reduce the balance due tied to the refund, create a separate manual invoice for the fee that should have been charged, and settle that invoice with an offline payment or credit.
A small number of customers have reported that voiding or canceling a related invoice or order resent the original confirmation email, such as an event registration or membership application notice. This has not been consistently reproduced, so treat it as something to watch for rather than an expected result.
Mistaken payment, refund, or void activity generally stays in your financial history instead of disappearing from the order or account record, even after you correct it. Ordinary void, refund, or delete actions do not erase that trail, so expect the record to show what happened rather than look as if it never did.
Reopening a balance due is not always the final step. If the original payment or refund was a genuine mistake and the customer still owes the money, leave the reopened balance in place and collect it again. Write off or otherwise clear the balance only when you are confident the amount should be forgiven or offset, not simply because a balance reappeared on the account.
What to Do If It Fails
- "Payment has already been voided" or a similar message, with the option grayed out. The payment is already void, so you cannot void or reverse it again.
- Rhythm refuses because the payment has refunds or credits. You cannot void or reverse a payment that has already been refunded, or one that generated credit that has since been used. If you are trying to recover a chargeback or a bad check, undo the refund or credit situation first, or ask Support for help. An "unknown error" during a void attempt can mean the same thing without saying it directly. For example, an overpayment credit follows different refund rules than an ordinary payment line and may not be voidable from the action tools, even when the message does not explain that.
- You try to refund or credit a payment after it's been voided. Rhythm blocks new refund and credit actions against a voided payment and shows an error if you try. If you still need to return money related to that payment, work from a different record, such as a credit already on the account.
- An overpayment credit created by a posted-batch payment can't be deleted directly. You can still resolve it eventually. Once the credit is unspent and back in an open batch, you can void or reverse the payment it came from, which unwinds the credit with it. Plan on that path instead of trying to delete the credit by itself.
- The target batch for a reversal isn't open. Choose a different open batch, because a reversal must land in a batch that is still open.
- You're not sure whether a transaction shows as reversed or refunded. Reversing and refunding are different actions with different outcomes. A true reversal shows a Reversed status on the original payment, while a refund is a separate transaction and does not change the original payment's status. A refund record and a voided or reversed payment record can both exist around the same activity, but they represent different amounts, so do not assume they describe the same financial event. The negative payment created by a reversal can display as "refunded" when you open it from related order activity, even though no money moved. Treat that as a display quirk, not a sign that a refund also happened. Voiding never creates a negative transaction. If you see negative payment-related entries alongside a higher balance due, that points to refund activity, not a void.
- An incorrect void already went through on a payment in a posted or downloaded batch. You cannot delete the original transactions and start over cleanly. Preserve the accounting trail instead by recreating the order, invoice, and payment as needed, then correct the totals through a new, separate batch.
- The void fails with an unclear error, or one that references a workflow already running. A prior void attempt on the same payment may still be in progress or stuck. Wait a few minutes and try again. Contact Support if it keeps failing the same way.
- A returned payment fails to void, citing an earlier batch date than the payment's actual date. This message is misleading rather than a real batch problem. Contact Support instead of trying to work around the batch date yourself.
- A duplicate reversal was created for the same payment by mistake and won't go away. You usually cannot remove it yourself. Moving the extra reversal into a new batch and archiving that batch keeps the original batch balanceable and out of your financial reporting until Support can correct the underlying duplicate. That correction usually needs engineering cleanup and can also leave a duplicate entry in your subledger, sometimes on a different batch date than the original. Avoid reversing the same payment a second time because you think the first attempt did not take effect. Confirm its actual status first, since retrying can create another duplicate.
- A reversed offline payment doesn't restore the invoice's balance due — it still shows paid, or has dropped out of accounts receivable. That means something went wrong during the reversal, rather than the expected outcome described above. Contact Support; they may need to apply a debit memo before you can collect a replacement payment.
- An order's payments and balance look negative after a partial check payment. This can happen when the payment was applied or recorded more than once, including a second payment that is not visible in the payment list. Review the order's full transaction history, and contact Support if you cannot account for the difference yourself.
- Voiding a payment that also has credit or refund activity tied to it leaves the amount paid or the balance due looking wrong. That combination does not always behave as expected. Contact Support instead of trying to correct the totals with another void or reversal.
- Void or delete fails with an "invalid reverse authorization" error. The payment and invoice can be left in an inconsistent state afterward. Contact Support; you may need a manual credit or adjustment rather than a second void or delete attempt.
- A customer's lifetime payment total looks higher than what they actually kept paying. That figure can include voided transactions, rather than only your net retained collections, so it will not always match what you expect after voids and refunds are accounted for.
- A payment's history shows only an icon, with no status text, and you can't tell whether it was voided. Open the payment itself to see its status in words instead of relying on the icon alone.
- A card was accepted and then reversed, even though it isn't expired and has worked elsewhere. An incorrectly entered CVV can cause the processor to reverse an otherwise valid card. Have the cardholder re-enter their card details carefully and try again.
- A payment gateway shows repeated authorize-and-reverse activity that you can't find anywhere in Rhythm's payment, invoice, or audit records. This can be a gateway-side edge case with no matching issue in Rhythm. Check your processor's own portal for more detail if you need to confirm what happened.
- The payment processor shows a captured charge, but Rhythm never saved a matching payment record. This can happen in an edge case where the save step fails right after the gateway captures the charge. Rhythm is designed to void that kind of orphaned gateway capture automatically rather than leave it uncollected in Rhythm with no record. If you still see the charge at the processor with nothing to match it in Rhythm, contact Support before assuming the money was kept without being recorded.
- A card authorization fails with a decline, an address-mismatch message, or another generic issuer response. These responses come from the card issuer, not from Rhythm:
- Decline code 39 means the card is invalid, often because the cardholder is using an old card after a replacement was issued.
- A suspected-fraud decline means the issuing bank blocked the transaction. The cardholder needs to contact their bank to clear it, or use a different card.
- An international card decline can also come from the issuer or its fraud screening blocking the charge, rather than from a problem with Rhythm. The cardholder's bank needs to clear it before future charges will go through.
- What looks like an address-verification failure can actually be a generic decline from the card issuer that has nothing to do with the billing address.
- A Visa instant authorization can produce a $0.00 failed reverse-authorization entry along with a message-format error. That entry does not necessarily mean the customer's payment failed.
- A card that should be valid keeps failing to process or save. Check your payment gateway's own transaction messages. A gateway can decline a card after too many attempts in a short period, even if the card itself is good.
- "Authorization Failure Rate Exceeded" or a similar rate-limit message appears after a payment attempt. This fraud-prevention limit can trigger after around six failed authorization attempts from the same IP address in a short window, even across different users or payment methods, and it resets after about five minutes. Wait five minutes before retrying instead of trying again immediately.
- A "duplicate transaction" error appears even though you only attempted the payment once. This message can come directly from your payment gateway's fraud or velocity checks, not from Rhythm, when a similar amount and card were submitted again recently. Wait for the gateway's duplicate-check window to pass before retrying.
- An invoice already shows Paid with a $0.00 balance and won't accept any further payment or credit. There is no remaining balance to apply anything against, so this is expected once the invoice is fully paid or fully discounted.
- A payment reversal produced an error partway through, and the invoice doesn't show the balance due you expected. Something went wrong during the reversal instead of completing cleanly. Check the invoice directly, and contact Support if the balance still is not what the result described above would produce.
- A card dispute or chargeback case has already closed. A closed dispute usually cannot be reopened. Any further recovery is a good-faith request through the card network, with no guarantee the funds will be returned. If that does not succeed, you need to collect from the payer directly, outside the dispute process.
- Void or reverse problems that seem specific to card and bank payments. Problems with a payment transacting and then failing to void as expected have been seen with gateway-processed card or bank transactions specifically. Recording and voiding an offline payment, such as cash, has been reported to work without that problem.
Warning
Once you reverse a payment, you cannot undo that reversal. There is no way to remove or reverse a reversal record after it is created, so double-check the payment and the target batch before you confirm.
Tip
For a bounced check or a chargeback where you do not expect to collect the money again, reverse the payment or issue a refund so the invoice shows a balance due. Then write off that balance if you are confident it is uncollectable. If Support needs to submit evidence for a disputed chargeback on your behalf, have the chargeback or dispute ID and supporting documents ready before you reach out.
Tip
A card or ACH dispute is handled through your payment processor, not in the Rhythm console. Set up email alerts so you hear about dispute notifications promptly, and, when the processor allows it, upload your supporting evidence from the Console to respond.