A customer brings something back and puts the money straight into a different purchase. In Manifold that is handled as two steps rather than one swap, and store credit is what carries the money between them.

Which situation are you in

The invoice tells you, by which button it offers.

  • "Start a Refund" means the sale is finished (status Posted, or Paid and waiting for pickup). The money comes back on a separate Refund document, and store credit carries it to the new sale.
  • "Issue Refund" means the sale is still open (status Pending or Partial). There is no separate document, and most of the time you do not need a refund at all.

Why a finished sale takes two documents

Once an invoice is posted, the parts came off the shelf, the sales tax was collected, and the salesperson was credited. Rewriting that invoice would undo figures your reports and your tax filing have already counted, so Manifold never edits it. A return and a sale are also opposite events: different items, different tax, opposite inventory movement. Kept apart, you can still answer what you sold this month and what came back. Kept together in one swap ticket, both disappear. The Refund document (REF-XXXX) links to the original invoice and the original links back, so the whole exchange is provable later.

If the sale is finished

Example: a $300 amplifier was posted and paid last week, and the customer now wants a $450 head unit instead.

  1. Open the original invoice and click "Start a Refund". The button appears on Posted and Paid invoices while there is still money left to refund.
  2. Enter a Return qty for each item coming back and choose its Destination: Restock (saleable), Defective, or Do not add back. That choice is what decides whether the item goes back on the shelf. Click "Save Refund Lines". The total includes the sales tax the customer paid.
  3. Under "Refund the remainder by", choose Store credit, then click "Issue Refund" and confirm. Nothing moves until that click, so a draft started by mistake can be deleted. The refunded amount lands on the customer's store credit balance and the returned item goes back into inventory.
  4. Create the new invoice for the head unit as you normally would.
  5. In Collect Payment, pick Store Credit. The method carries the amount in its own label, for example "Store Credit ($321.00 available)", and fills in as much as this sale can use.
  6. Take the difference on a second payment line, by card, cash, or check. If the new sale is smaller than the credit, the leftover simply stays on the customer's account for next time.

If the sale is still open

Example: the customer put a $200 deposit on that amplifier, nothing has been posted, and now they want the head unit instead.

  1. First ask whether any money is actually leaving. Usually it is not. An open invoice is not final, so you can just edit it: take the amplifier line off, add the head unit, and the $200 already paid stays on the same invoice. Collect the difference at pickup. No refund, no store credit, one document.
  2. Manifold tells you when editing is not enough. If your edit drops the total below what the customer has already paid, the save is refused with a message naming the difference: issue a refund for that difference first, then edit.
  3. When money really is going back, click "Issue Refund" on the invoice. The refund is recorded on that same invoice, which reduces its Amount Paid and reopens the Balance Due. There is no separate Refund document, because the sale was never finished.
  4. The refund method has to match what the customer paid with, capped at what they paid that way. To send it to store credit instead of back to their card, tick "Override method restriction" and enter a reason. That checkbox only appears for staff with the refund override permission.
  5. Only tick items under "Return Items to Stock" if something physically came back. Stock does not leave your shelf until an invoice is posted, so on most open invoices there is nothing to return, and lines that never moved are greyed out as not stock-tracked.
  6. Fill in "Reason for Refund". It is required here, and it is what makes the exchange legible months later, since there is no Refund document carrying the story.

A third option on an open invoice: if the customer cancels but wants to leave their deposit with you, clear the line items off the invoice and the money stays on it as a credit, showing as a negative balance. Use that when they are coming back for the same job. Use store credit when the money should follow them to a different invoice.

Worth knowing either way

  • Store credit belongs to a customer, so a walk-in invoice with nobody attached cannot be refunded to credit. Add the customer first, or refund by cash or check.
  • You can never refund more than the customer actually paid on that invoice, counted across every refund made against it.
  • Tax comes back with the items, so the credit covers the tax the customer paid. Returning and rebuying at the same tax rate is a wash.
  • A credit card surcharge is refunded only on the portion that goes back to the card.
  • Every credit issued and spent is listed on the customer's page with the document it came from.

For the full detail on each half, see "Refunding a finalized (Posted) invoice", "How to Refund or Void an Invoice", and "Store Credit".