Refunding a sales receipt (partial refund)

A partial refund reverses part of a sales receipt—returning specific items or quantities to inventory and issuing a credit or refund payment to the customer. Use this when a customer returns only some of the goods or wants a refund on a portion of their purchase.

Before you start

• You must have permission to create refunds (refund creation is typically restricted to accounting or management roles)
• The sales receipt must already be saved and confirmed
• You know which items and quantities the customer is returning
• If the refund is for a discount or change dispute rather than returned goods, consider issuing a payment adjustment instead

Steps

1. Go to Invoices → View all sales receipts
   Open in Usystems

2. Find and click the sales receipt you want to partially refund.

3. On the receipt detail page, scroll down to the related records section and click the Refunds tab.

4. Click + New refund.

5. The refund form opens with the same line items as the original receipt. For each item you are refunding:

   • Enter the quantity being returned in the Quantity column
   • Leave items at 0 if they are not being refunded

6. Verify the refund total appears correctly at the bottom.

7. Click Save refund.

The system will:

• Return the refunded quantities to inventory
• Credit the customer's account or issue a payment (depending on their contact type and settings)
• Post the reversal to your ledger

Accounting impact

When you save a partial refund, the system:

• Debits the sales account (reversing revenue for returned items)
• Credits the customer account or cash account (refunding the amount)
• Credits inventory (restocking the returned goods at cost)

This creates a complete double-entry for both the money and the stock.

Tips & common mistakes

• Don't refund more than was sold. The form will prevent you from exceeding the original quantity per item.
• Return unused goods only. If items are damaged or used, you may need to record a loss rather than returning them to saleable inventory.
• Check the inventory account selected. The refund posts the cost of goods sold back to the warehouse selected on the original receipt.
• Combine refunds for the same customer strategically. Each refund is a separate transaction; if the customer is returning multiple items over time, you may choose to group them into one refund record.