If for some reason your client is no longer using your product or services, or they’re not satisfied, you may need to issue a refund. A refund can be processed directly from your FreshBooks account for most online payments, and all other manual refunds can be updated by you as well.
Refund an Online Payment
Refunds can only be processed by the business owner or admin of the account. To refund a payment that was made through FreshBooks Payments or Stripe, use the below steps:
- Choose whether you'd like to refund on an individual invoice or from the Payments section:
- Select the Payments section
- Then either in the Invoice Payments tab, or the Checkout Link Payments tab, hover over a payment you want to refund
- Select the Refund button - if it does not appear, the payment is too old to refund
- Or select the Invoices section
- Then select the invoice you want to refund
- Scroll down to the All Payments for Invoice [Number] and check the box(es) off next to the payment
- Select More Actions and select Refund
- Select the Payments section
- On the Refund page, under Refund Options, choose between Full Refund or Other Amount
- Under Reason for Refund, choose between Duplicate, Fraudulent or Requested by Customer
- Select the Refund button to confirm. A refund notification will be emailed to the client once the refund is processed, and the payment will be updated to reflect the refunded amount with a reversal reason.
Notes:
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Processing Time - Refunds take 3-7 business days to process and are taken from your FreshBooks Payments or Stripe Standard account balance first if any funds are available, or your connected bank account if there is no balance
- FreshBooks Payments Bank Transfer refunds - Funds must be available in your FreshBooks Payments dashboard's balance to refund, either through incoming payments or by topping up the balance
- Transaction Fees - Transaction fees are not refunded for FreshBooks Payments, Stripe Standard, and PayPal payments
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Invoice Status - The invoice status will stay the same until the refund has finished processing, once processed, the invoice will return to its previous status (Overdue, Partially Paid, or Sent)
- If the invoice will not be fully paid, use the steps in Manual Payments below to add a negative line item and reduce the balance to $0
- Checkout Links - Checkout Links that have been refunded will indicate a status of Refunded
Refund a Manual Payment
If your refund was not processed through FreshBooks Payments or Stripe Standard, or you're looking to update after manually refunding PayPal payments, you can manually adjust the original payment amount with the below steps:
- Process the refund outside of FreshBooks as needed (like your PayPal account)
- Go to the Payments section
- Find the payment you want to refund and select it
- Edit the total in the Amount field to reflect the new amount after the refund ($0 or a specific amount after a partial refund)
- In the Notes field, specify any details about the refund
- Select the checkmark button to save your changes
- Then in the saved payment, select the Invoice Number link to go to that invoice
- Select the Edit button on the invoice
- Add a line item called Refund (or something similar) with the partial or full amount you refunded as a negative value
- Select Save to finish. The invoice will now reflect the refunded amount.
FAQs
How do I reconcile refunds in my bank reconciliation?
If you're using Bank Reconciliation and you need to reconcile full or partial invoice payment refunds, use the steps in How do I reconcile complex transactions in bank reconciliation?.
Where do I view all my Refunds?
All past refunds can be viewed by using the Online Payments settings' All Transactions sub-tab and selecting Refunded in the Quick Filters.
What happens if I refund the payment from within my Stripe Standard dashboard instead?
If you process your refund outside of FreshBooks from within your Stripe Standard dashboard, the payment in your FreshBooks account will also be automatically updated to reflect the refund for you.