Updated April 15, 2024

If you're using Legacy Stripe, Square or PayPal as your payment processor, you can manually log a refund on a Dubsado invoice after issuing it through your payment processor account. Logging a refund in Dubsado won’t transfer funds back to your client, but it's still an important step to make a record and keep your chart of accounts up to date.

If you're connected with Dubsado Payments powered by Stripe, refunds are more streamlined! Check out our article on issuing refunds with Dubsado Payments instead.

Since payments with Legacy Stripe, Square, or PayPal are handled by your payment processor, it’s not possible to initiate a refund from a Dubsado invoice. To issue a refund, go directly to your Stripe, Square, or PayPal account:

For additional support on issuing refunds or to check on the status of a refund, please reach out directly to Stripe, Square, or PayPal with any questions.

After you’ve issued the refund through your payment processor, you’ll want to manually update the invoice in Dubsado so it includes the refund:

Click the Select a payment dropdown to choose a specific transaction.

Choose Custom refund if you refunded your client differently from how you received their payment. For example, you collected payment from Stripe, but you refunded in cash.

If you select a transaction from the dropdown, the Payment method will autofill to the original payment method used. Refund date and Refund amount will autofill to today’s date and the full amount of the transaction. You can change the date or edit the amount if you give a partial refund.

If you select Custom refund, you’ll need to manually enter the Payment method, Refund date, and Refund amount.

Both the note and description are optional fields. Enter a note to the client that will appear on the refund receipt. The Description is only for you and won’t be seen by your client.

Turn Allow client to repay on if you plan to collect the refunded amount again from the client in the future. That way, the invoice remainder will adjust to include this amount.

Keep the toggle off if you don’t expect the client to make that payment again — the invoice remainder will not change.

For more information, please read our help article on allowing clients to repay.

Your clients won’t automatically get an alert after you log a refund in Dubsado, but you can manually email a refund receipt to let them know.

Emailing a refund receipt from Dubsado is optional because invoices with refunds are automatically updated to include a link to the refund receipt. Your client can go into their invoice and click View receipt to see the refund receipt.

The refund receipt includes the note to your client if you entered one. This box will only appear if you typed a note.

If you want to manually email your client the refund receipt:

Clicking Send via email on a logged refund sends the refund receipt using an email template. Customize the template in Templates > Canned Emails > Edit Templates > Send Refund.

Refunds are applied to the invoice as a whole, distributed evenly across all income categories on the invoice.

Refunds are recorded under Reporting > Transactions. You can view all refunds by clicking the Filters button. Under Transaction type, select Refund.

Total income minus any refunds can be viewed as Gross Revenue in Reporting > Chart of Accounts under the Income category.

By default, logging a refund will not reopen the refunded balance to be paid on the invoice. This prevents closed invoices from reopening, assuming that when you issue a refund, you’re not expecting the client to pay you back.

If you’d like the refunded amount to be added back to the invoice remainder, turn on the option to Allow client to repay when you log the refund.

Yes! Existing refunds can be edited. You can change the refund amount, date, add a note or description, or whether to allow the client to repay.

To edit a refund:

Logging a refund in Dubsado won’t automatically log that refund in any connected accounting software.

Yes. Any workflows based on an invoice being paid will continue even if you later provide a refund.

No. Logging a refund won’t impact clients on autopay. Even if you log a refund, autopay will continue to run normally.