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Issue Refunds and Settle Balances
A refund returns an amount that a customer no longer owes, such as an overpayment or an available credit balance. Billing issues a refund either automatically, after you cancel or reduce a subscription, or on demand, when you want to settle a customer’s available credit balance by using a credit memo.
Required Editions
| Available in: Lightning Experience |
| Available in: Enterprise, Unlimited, and Developer Editions with the Revenue Cloud Billing license. Contact your Salesforce account executive for more information. |
Types of Refunds
Billing supports two types of refunds—referenced refunds and unreferenced (or non-referenced) refunds. They differ by whether the refund references an original payment, how and when the refund is issued, and which payment method receives the funds.
| Referenced refund | Unreferenced refund | |
|---|---|---|
| How the refund is issued | Automatically | Manually |
| When the refund is issued | When you cancel or reduce a subscription | When you settle an available credit balance back to the customer’s account. |
| Refund issued via | The original payment method used on the settled invoice. | A saved payment method resolved from the API request, the credit memo, or the billing account. |
| Applied to | The credit memo that the subscription change creates. | A credit memo or a credit memo line. |
| Requirements | The original payment is associated with a payment gateway. | The account has an available credit balance and uses a supported third-party payment gateway. |
How Billing Processes Referenced Refunds
When you cancel or reduce a subscription, Billing calculates the refund amount and generates a credit memo to settle the resulting negative invoice. Billing then automatically issues the refund against the original payment method. Billing can initiate a referenced refund only when the original payment is associated with a payment gateway.
To issue referenced refunds, turn on Issue Refunds and Settle Balances on the Billing Settings page. For more information, see Initiate Automated Refunds on Negative and Canceled Invoices.
How Billing Processes Unreferenced Refunds
Customers build up credit balances from overpayments, adjustments, or canceled orders that have no payment to reference. An unreferenced refund returns an available credit balance against a credit memo instead of refunding back against the original payment. Accounts receivable and collections teams can issue an unreferenced refund against a credit memo or a credit memo line, and Billing automatically reduces the outstanding credit balance.
Billing pays the refund to a saved payment method through a supported third-party gateway. Teams also use unreferenced refunds to resolve billing disputes and overpayment claims by converting credit memo balances into refunds.
To learn how Billing applies and pays unreferenced refunds, see Refund Available Credit Balances to Customer Accounts. To issue an unreferenced refund, see Issue an Unreferenced Refund Against a Credit Memo.
- Initiate Automated Refunds on Negative and Canceled Invoices
During subscription changes such as a quantity reduction or cancellation, Billing generates a negative invoice which then gets converted to a credit memo. This action triggers the automated refund process, where Billing automatically initiates the refund to the original payment method. - Refund Available Credit Balances to Customer Accounts
Refund a customer’s available credit balance against a credit memo or credit memo line without referencing an original payment.
