Refunding an Open Balance

Refunding an open balance refund gives money back to a customer who has overpaid or is due a refund. In NetSuite, you can pay a customer refund by issuing a check or by crediting a customer's credit card account.

For example, a customer sends you a check to pay an invoice. You apply a discount to this invoice while entering the payment. The difference between the discounted total and the payment is an unapplied credit to the customer's account.

This customer prefers to receive money back rather than having a credit applied to future invoices. You need to issue a customer refund to reimburse this customer.

To refund an open balance:

Go to Transactions > Customers > Issue Customer Refund (Administrator).
Under Primary Information:
1. Select the customer whose balance you are refunding.
  
  The current customer balance is shown in the Balance field.
  
  If the customer has a negative balance, the transactions responsible for that balance appear on the Credits subtab.
2. In the Account field, select the bank account you are using for this refund.
3. Check the To Be Printed box if you want to print a check for this refund.
  
  If you are refunding this open balance with a check, the next consecutive check number appears.
4. If you use the Multi-Currency Customers feature, select the currency of the credits or deposits you want to refund. The currency selected in the Currency field filters the list of credits and deposits on the Apply subtab.
  
  If you do not use this feature, the currency for this customer shows in the Currency field.
  
  For more information, see Customers and Multiple Currencies.
  
  The current exchange rate for this currency is shown in the Exchange Rate field. You can edit the exchange rate for this transaction only, or you can update the currency record with the exchange rate you enter here.
5. The Refund Amount field shows the total amount for this refund.
6. In the Date field, enter the date for this refund.
7. In the Posting Period field, select the period this transaction should post in.
8. Enter an optional memo to describe this refund. For example, you may want to include the original transaction number on the refund.
Under Classification, select the department, class, or location you want to apply to this transaction.

Note:
If you use NetSuite OneWorld and the selected customer is shared with multiple subsidiaries, you can choose any subsidiary assigned to the selected customer. For information about sharing customer records with multiple subsidiaries, see Assigning Subsidiaries to a Customer.
Click the Apply subtab, and on the Credits subtab, check the box in the Apply column next to each transaction that caused the overpayment you are refunding.
Click the Payee Address subtab, and verify your customer's address. You can select another address if available, or create a custom address for the particular Customer Refund.
Enter the refund method details:
1. Click the Refund Method subtab.
2. In the Refund Method field, select the customer's original payment method.
  
  You must issue the refund in the same form of payment.
3. If you are crediting the customer's credit card account, enter the credit card information.
4. If you have a NetSuite enabled merchant account, the check the Process Credit Card box to refund the customer's credit card when you save this transaction.
5. If you do not have a NetSuite enable merchant account, process the refund then check the Credit Card Approved box.
When you have finished, click Save.

If you refunded your customer in the form of a check and checked the To Be Printed box, go to Transactions > Management > Print Checks and Forms (Administrator) to print it.

Note:

For details about Refunding a Credit Card with Verisign, please read FAQ: Accounting & ERP.

To refund an open balance:

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