Overview
Credit notes and refunds are closely related in Frisbii Billing, but they do different things. A credit note is an accounting document that corrects an invoice. A refund is a payment transaction that sends money back to your customer. This article explains the difference and helps you choose the right action.
Important
A credit note on its own never pays money back to your customer. If your customer has already paid and should get their money back, refund the invoice.
Credit note: the paper trail
A credit note documents that all or part of an invoice is no longer owed. The original invoice stays unchanged, and the credit note records the correction with its own accounting number. This keeps your invoice history and your accounting exports complete and traceable.
You create a credit note when you click Credit on an invoice. Credit notes can only be created for subscription invoices. The credited amount is applied to the next regular invoice of the subscription.
A credit note does not:
return money to your customer's card, bank account or any other payment method
create a payment transaction
You find all credit notes under Payments → Credit notes. Depending on your settings, the document title on the PDF is either "Credit note" or "Cancellation invoice".
Refund: money back to your customer
A refund pays all or part of a settled invoice back to your customer. You start a refund by clicking Refund on a settled invoice. There are two types of refunds:
Online refund: Frisbii sends the refund to the payment method your customer used to pay, for example their card.
Manual refund: You have already paid the money back outside Frisbii, for example by bank transfer or in cash. The manual refund documents this payment in Frisbii.
Every refund automatically creates a credit note. You don't need to credit the invoice separately.
Limitations
A refund cannot be reversed. If you refunded an invoice by mistake, ask your customer to transfer the amount back to you.
Which action should you choose?
Situation | Action |
|---|---|
Your customer has paid and should get the money back. | Refund the invoice with an online refund. |
You have already paid your customer back outside Frisbii. | Refund the invoice with a manual refund to document the payment. |
An invoice is too high and you want to correct it without paying money back. | Credit the invoice. The credited amount is applied to the next regular invoice. |
You want to reduce your customer's next invoice, for example as a goodwill gesture. | |
The payment is only authorized and not settled yet. | Cancel the transaction. No money has been withdrawn yet, so there is nothing to refund. |