Customer Refunds

Kickserv has brought users the ability to issue refunds to your customers. It's no one's favorite thing to do, but it is an important (but hopefully rare) business function. This guide explains how refunds work in Kickserv as well as important details to keep in mind when issuing refunds.

1. Refunds are Available at All Plan Levels

Refunds are available at all plan levels—whether you're on a Flex plan or Premium plan, there are no restrictions on this function. Your two methods of issuing refunds will be either from the payments panel on a job record or through Stripe.

2. Refunding Manually-Logged Payments

For payments that were manually logged into the system, you can now issue a refund quickly by using a new refund button located at the top of the payments panel. This button is available to users who already have permission to create and modify payments. Simply follow these steps:

1. Navigate to your Payments Panel.
2. Click the Refund Button at the top of the panel.
3. Complete the form and click Save.

No more deleting payments or creating negative-value job line items to make everything line up. Now, your payments table will reflect every action that has transpired.

3. Refunding Payments via Stripe

If you're using Stripe for payment processing, issuing a refund is even easier. You can issue the refund directly from your Stripe account, and it will automatically sync and update the corresponding invoice inside Kickserv. Similar to payments taken with Stripe, refunds cannot be deleted in order to preserve a record's financial history.

• Log into your Stripe account
• Find the correct customer and payment.
• Issue the refund (full or partial) from Stripe's options.
• The refund's status will be updated and reflected automatically in Kickserv.
• This ensures consistency between the two platforms and saves you time.

4. Syncing Refunds with QuickBooks® Online

For users synced with QuickBooks Online, any refund processed—whether manually or through Stripe—will sync automatically to your QuickBooks account when the invoice is synced. Please note that by syncing a refund to Quickbooks Online, you give Kickserv permission to create a corresponding item in the account. This refund item can't be reused or added to the item list.

• Refunds issued manually or through Stripe will automatically update and appear in your QuickBooks Online account.
• You will need to have your Sales Account for new items set to 'Services' for this to work
• Refunds should be started outside of Quickbooks in order to ensure accuracy
• Refunds originating in QuickBooks will not sync back to our software. This means that any refund processed directly through QuickBooks will need to be manually recorded in Kickserv to reflect the change.

5. Online Payment Fees are not Part of the Refund

Please keep in mind that online payment processing fees (such as those from Stripe) are not included in the refund amount. These fees are typically non-refundable, and they will not be reimbursed as part of the refund process.

6. Where to find your Refunds

We have a new standard report built that will list out all issued refunds. You can find it by navigating to Reports > Finance (toward the bottom of the page). We are also updating the aging report with some new logic to handle these types of transactions:

• Jobs with full payments and full or partial refunds will not appear on the aging report. These transactions are considered complete, so they won’t show as outstanding.
• Jobs with partial payments and partial refunds will still appear on the aging report, as these transactions remain incomplete or need further reconciliation.

Lastly, the customer details page will also be updating with a new Refunds tab and field in the balances block.

Summary

To recap, our refund process is simple and flexible at all plan levels. You can issue refunds from the payments panel for manually logged payments or through Stripe for connected accounts. If you're using QuickBooks Online, refunded transactions will sync to your account, but remember: refunds initiated in QuickBooks won’t sync back to our software. Online payment fees are not refunded, and job statuses in the aging report are impacted by the nature of the payments and refunds.

If you have any questions or need assistance with processing refunds, our support team is always available to help!