Refund or correct a payment

A member has paid, and some or all of it needs putting right. What that means depends on how they paid, and Syndik8 decides it for you rather than asking:

They paid through the app — by card, Direct Debit, instant bank transfer, or the in-app payment sheet. The payment provider is holding their money, so Syndik8 asks it to send the money back and records what that means for their balance in the same step.
They paid any other way, or the charge was cleared some other way — cash, a bank transfer you recorded, a waived charge, or an offset against a credit. There is nothing for the provider to send back, so Syndik8 corrects the books instead. Anything you have agreed to hand back has to be paid outside the app.

A card or Direct Debit payment always takes the first route. If the provider cannot send the money back — the payment carries no reference the provider recognises — the form offers nothing at all and points you at support, because the record is wrong rather than the payment, and correcting it on the books would tell the member money was coming back when nobody had asked for it.

Both routes start in the same place, ask the same questions, and record the same three meanings. They differ in whether money moves — and the screen tells you which one you are on before you press anything.

Before you start

You need an admin role in the syndicate (treasurer counts as admin).
Where money does go back, it comes out of the syndicate’s balance with the payment provider, not out of Syndik8. If that balance is too low the refund is refused until it is topped up or the next payout lands.
A refund cannot be pulled back. Once the provider has it, undoing it means asking the member to pay again. A books-only correction is not irreversible in the same way, but it does change what a member owes.
Open the Admin tab → Payments → Reversals.

Put the payment right

On the Reversals screen, tap Raise a reversal.
Choose the payment from the list. Only payments that have settled appear.
Look at the top of the form. If a panel headed This one is corrected on the books is there, the provider has nothing to send back on this payment and nothing will leave the syndicate. It names the reason: the payment was recorded as something the provider never took — cash, external transfer, waived, or an offset against a credit. If the panel is absent, money will move.
Tick the charges you are putting right. Every charge the payment covered starts ticked, because dealing with the whole payment is the commoner case. Untick any you are leaving alone — that is how you refund or correct part of a payment. The running total under the list reads £X of charges selected.
Choose what it means:
- Reverse the settlement — the payment is undone and the charges reopen. The member owes them again. Use this when the payment was taken or recorded wrongly and you intend to collect it properly afterwards. This is the “I marked the wrong person as paid” case.
- Full refund — the charges stay settled and nothing is re-billed. The syndicate carries the cost. This is the goodwill and write-off case.
- Adjust the amount — the charge itself was wrong. The charges stay settled at the corrected figure and only the difference comes back.
On a waived charge only the first option is offered. A waiver means the syndicate absorbed the charge and the member paid nothing, so there is nothing to give back: correcting the amount would credit them money they never handed over, and a full refund would record money returning to them that never left them. A panel headed Nothing can be given back for this one says so and names what does work. Reverse the settlement stays, and it is the useful one here — a charge waived in error can still be put back so the member owes it again. If the waived figure itself was wrong, add a one-off adjustment on the member’s account for the difference.
If you chose Adjust the amount, enter the corrected amount and a short description for it. The corrected amount must be less than the charges you ticked — a correction that does not reduce the charge gives nothing back. To correct a charge upwards, raise a manual adjustment on the member’s balance instead: nothing is coming back, so it is not a correction of this kind.
Add an optional reason for your records.
Read the line just above the button. It says what the choice you have made will actually do, in the language of the route you are on: £X goes back to the member, or £X of charges goes back to being owed by the member, or £X is credited to the member’s account.
If the payment is more than ninety days old, a warning appears above the button. Read it — for Direct Debit, the payer’s bank can still claim the money back under the Direct Debit Guarantee, without giving a reason, and there is no deadline we control after which that stops being possible. The action can still go ahead.
Press the button. It reads Refund £X where money moves and Correct the books where it does not, and the confirmation that follows says the same thing again:

Route	Confirmation asks	You press	What happens
Money moves	Send this money back? — naming the amount and the member	Send it back	The provider is asked to return the money
Books only	Correct the books? — spelling out that no money is sent anywhere	Make the correction	The ledger is adjusted and nothing leaves the syndicate

Cancel on either dialog moves nothing and records nothing.

Where the money ends up

This is the one difference the member will notice, and the only one you have to explain to them.

Meaning	Payment taken through the app	Payment taken any other way
Reverse the settlement	The money is back in their bank, and the charges are outstanding again on their balance.	The charges are outstanding again on their balance. No money moves; if they are owed anything, you pay it outside the app.
Full refund	The money is back in their bank and their balance does not change.	The charges stay settled and their balance does not change. Nothing further is owed either way. Not offered on a waived charge, where nothing was ever handed over.
Adjust the amount	The difference is back in their bank and their balance does not change. A credit for the difference is posted and paid off in the same moment by the money going back, so the books say the corrected figure was what you charged without the member being owed anything.	The difference is credited to their account, so it comes off what they owe next. That credit is how they are made whole; there is no bank payment.

What the answer means when money moves

Sending money back has more than two possible endings, and they are not four failures and a success. Read the one you get before doing anything else.

What you see	What it means	What to do
£X has gone back.	The provider returned the money and the ledger has been updated.	Nothing.
Accepted, and still settling	The provider took the instruction and the money is on its way. A bank refund routinely takes several working days.	Nothing. Find it under On its way back on the Reversals screen. Balances do not move until it lands. Do not raise a second refund.
This refund had already been made	An identical request had already gone through. This is that same refund, not a second one.	Nothing. The money went back once.
The money has gone back (with a warning)	The provider returned the money and our own record of what it meant did not finish. It has already been raised for review.	Nothing to re-send. It appears under Needs attention; finish it there.
We could not confirm this with the payment provider	No usable answer came back. The refund may well exist.	Check the provider’s dashboard before asking for another one, or the same money can go back twice. Anything that was started is held under On its way back until we have asked the provider ourselves, which happens within a couple of hours: if it went through it is recorded and applied then, and if it never reached them the amount goes back to what the payment can still refund.
Nothing was sent back	The refund was refused and the money never moved. The message says why.	Fix what it names and try again.

A books-only correction has just two endings: The books have been corrected, or a message saying why it was not recorded. Nothing moved either way, so you can simply try again.

Who gets told

You do not have to tell the member yourself; both routes notify them, in their own words.

Where money went back, they get a Refund sent notice naming the amount, the payment it came off, that it can take a few days to arrive, and what has happened to the charges it covers — including, where you re-opened them, that their balance has gone up by the same amount.

Where you corrected the books, they get a Payment corrected notice instead. It says the same things minus the money, and says plainly that none has moved. That distinction is the whole reason the two notices are separate: a member told only that their payment was “reversed” would sit waiting for a bank credit that is never coming.

Every other admin in the syndicate gets the same message in the third person. You do not, because you have just done it. That is deliberate: money leaving the syndicate’s account with only the person who sent it knowing is the worse failure.

All of these are always emailed and cannot be turned off, though push can be. See Notification types.

Limits worth knowing

You cannot refund more than remains refundable on a payment. Refunds already on their way back count against that total, which is why they are shown rather than hidden. Every one of them counts for what actually went back, corrections included: correcting a £210 charge to £180 on a £222 payment uses up £30 of it, not £210.
Two admins working the same payment cannot each return the whole of it. The second attempt is refused with what is left.
A reverse or a full refund covers the whole of the charges you tick, so the money going back is exactly what those charges come to. If you want to send back only part of a charge, use Adjust the amount instead. Where the figures on your screen have gone stale, the refusal names both numbers rather than the amount simply being refused; close the screen, reopen it and check them.
A refund shown as On its way back holds that much of the payment while it is there, and one whose instruction never actually reached the provider would otherwise hold it for ever. You do not have to do anything about that: Syndik8 asks the provider about any refund still shown as on its way back after a couple of hours, and either records what really happened to it or, where the provider never had it, releases the amount back to what the payment can still refund.
A payment can only be refunded while everything that has gone back off it is accounted for. Where money has gone back on a payment and nobody has said which charges it was for, a refund of that payment is refused until somebody does — narrowing what you tick will not help, because a refund claiming no charges may have been for any of them. Work it out and record it from that payment’s queue. Clearing it from the queue instead is permanent and does not release those charges, so it leaves that payment unrefundable for good. See Work the reversals queue.
All of this is online only. There is no offline queue for money leaving the account, and ledger corrections are online too.

Refund or correct a payment

Refund or correct a payment

Before you start

Put the payment right

Where the money ends up

What the answer means when money moves

Who gets told

Limits worth knowing

See also