Refunds: what the app can and can't do

It's worth being upfront about a current limit: there is no in-app action to issue a refund. The invoice page has no "Refund" button - not in the top action menu and not on the payment card.

What the app does show is a record of refunds that happened elsewhere: the invoice Timeline at the bottom of the page includes refund events (you'll see an entry such as "Refund initiated"), so a refund that was processed is visible to you in the invoice's history.

In practice this means refunds are handled outside of Essential - for example directly through your payment processor - and then surface back on the invoice's timeline as a record.

If you need to return money to a customer, plan to do it through your processor and treat the Essential timeline as the place to confirm and track that it occurred, rather than the place to start it.

If a refund changes what the customer ultimately owes or paid, keep that in mind when reading the invoice's payment summary, which reflects payments collected through Essential.

Where to find it: Open the invoice and scroll to the Timeline at the bottom of the page - refunds appear there as events. There is no refund button in the invoice action bar or on the payment card.

Related guides

• Add a line item to an invoice
• Apply a discount to an invoice
• Attach files or reports to an invoice
• Can I reverse a payment I recorded?
• Charge a customer's saved card for an invoice