Refunding an invoice

You can refund a payment a family made online without leaving Encore. Open the invoice and press Refund.

Sending a refund

1. If the invoice was paid in more than one payment, choose the Payment to refund.

2. Enter the Amount (USD). It starts at everything still refundable on that payment — including any card processing fee — and you can lower it for a partial refund.

3. Give a Reason. It is required, kept on the invoice for your records, and never shown to the family.

4. Press Send refund.

The money goes back to the card or bank account that paid, and can take 5–10 business days to show on the family's statement. The family is emailed when Stripe confirms the refund.

A refunded invoice stays paid

A refund never makes an invoice owed again. The invoice keeps its Paid status and is marked Refunded or Partially refunded, so it never reappears in a family's balance due, never triggers a payment reminder, and is never charged again automatically. Your revenue figures take the refund off on the day it was made, not in the month the payment came in.

If the family does still owe something, raise a new invoice for it — that way the record shows exactly what happened.

Refunds made in Stripe

A refund you make directly in your Stripe dashboard is picked up and recorded on the invoice in exactly the same way, and the family is emailed too. Either route gives the same record.

What cannot be refunded here

Only payments made online through Stripe. A payment you recorded by hand — cash, a check, Venmo — never went through Stripe, so there is nothing to send back from here; return that money the way it was paid.

Who can refund

You, and any manager you have given the Billing section. A manager who holds Documents but not Billing can open the invoice but does not see the Refund button.