If you create invoices for customers when they make a purchase, you should also create credit notes for them for any returns and refunds.
Credit notes are tax documents that verify you have processed the refund and are sending money back to the payer’s account. For customers, they serve as accounting documents that evidence the finances arriving in their bank accounts.
Sufio can automatically create credit notes for refunded orders—even for one or multiple partial refunds. In this article, we explain how Sufio automatically creates and sends credit notes.
To have Sufio automatically create credit notes for you, you need to enable the Multiple documents per order creation mode:
- In your Sufio account, go to the Settings → Documents page.
- In the Document creation modes section, click on the Multiple documents per order button.
- You may turn the Create new documents incrementally toggle on or off to select the setting you need.
- Click on the Update settings button at the top of the page button to apply the changes.
Now, Sufio creates a series of documents that reflect changes made to the order in your online store.
This affects the way Sufio handles creating additional documents for updated orders, and two settings are available: Incremental credit notes or Cancellation credit notes.
When the Create new documents incrementally toggle is enabled, Sufio will create credit notes for returns and refunds.
If an order is edited and new items are added, an additional invoice with only the new items will be created.
The advantage of this setting is that for each change to the order, an additional invoice or credit note is created, and together they represent the status of the order. Typically, this also means fewer documents are created than when using the cancellation setting.
Tip
For most merchants, the incremental credit notes is the recommended setting since it reflects the typical accounting and bookkeeping standards. However, we advise to verify this with your local accountant or lawyer still.
For every change made to an order—such as a return, refund, or edit—Sufio will create a cancellation credit note that will cancel the original invoice in full.
It will then create a new invoice that will reflect the state of the order.
The advantage of the setting is that after each change to the order, both you and your customer end up with one summary invoice that reflects the latest state of their order.
Note
The change of document creation mode applies only to orders created after the change. Orders created previously retain the document creation mode selected at the time of their creation.
You can always create credit notes manually, too.
- In your Sufio account, go to the Documents → Invoices page and select an invoice for which you want to create a credit note.
- Open an invoice for which you want to create a credit note.
- In the invoice view, click the More → Create credit note button.
- By default, a credit note will contain all items from the invoice. To create a partial credit note, delete the item lines you do not want to be included.
- Click the Save button to apply the changes.
The credit note is now created and saved in your account. You can click Send credit note to send it to the customer.
Note
Alternatively, you can go to the Documents → Credit notes page, click the New credit note button, and create a standalone credit note.
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