How to correctly return an advance and overpayment in the "Trading with account statement" mode

The "Trade with Invoice Issuance" (TWI) mode is a convenient sales management tool designed for online stores and made-to-order sales, where payments are made in stages and goods are reserved or shipped in parts, as well as for wholesale trade. 

The issue with returning a prepayment (advance payment) in this mode is that entrepreneurs often face customer order cancellations, changes to the list of goods, or situations where the goods have already been shipped and the customer has overpaid. 

Entrepreneurs usually ask the following questions: how to correctly return an overpayment if the outgoing invoice has already been created and closed; how to avoid double charging of the acquiring fee when returning funds to a card; why the error "The refund amount cannot exceed the prepayment amount" occurs when working with foreign currency invoices; and why the fiscal refund receipt is not sent to the tax authority (PECR).

Below is the algorithm for correctly returning a prepayment in Torgsoft.

Basic principles of working with prepayments in TWI

In Torgsoft, a prepayment for an invoice is not strictly linked to a specific product until the outgoing invoice is created.

• A prepayment can be returned in full or partially, for example, in an amount equal to the difference between the initial prepayment and the cost of the goods already shipped.

• A prepayment can be returned to the customer even if an outgoing invoice has already been created for the invoice.

• The possible refund amount is determined as the total amount of all prepayments for the invoice that have not yet been allocated to outgoing invoices.

• If the prepayment was entered by mistake and has not yet been allocated to any outgoing invoices, it can simply be deleted from the system without processing a refund.

Algorithm No. 1. Returning a prepayment if the outgoing invoice has not been created or there is an available balance

This algorithm is suitable for cases where the customer made an advance payment but cancelled the order before shipment, or when unallocated funds remain after partial shipment.

1. Open the main menu item Document — Trade with Invoice Issuance.

2. Go to the Invoice tab and select the invoice for which the funds need to be returned.

3. Click the Return Prepayment button.

4. The «Return prepayment for invoice» window will open, where the program automatically fills in the payment method, date, and available refund amount.

5. Click the Enter Payment button, and the money will be returned.

Algorithm No. 2. Returning an OVERPAYMENT if the outgoing invoice has already been created and overpaid

There are often situations where goods need to be shipped urgently, the manager creates an outgoing invoice, and then it turns out that the customer has overpaid for it, so the accountant needs to return the difference. A separate mechanism is used for such cases:

1. Go to Trade with Invoice Issuance and open the Outgoing Invoice tab.

2. Select the overpaid invoice, which will have a negative debt.

3. In the Payments for outgoing invoice table, click the Return Overpayment button.

4. Specify the refund amount. The overpayment can be returned in several stages, but the program will not allow returning an amount greater than the total overpayment amount for this outgoing invoice.

Important nuances and pitfalls

1. Fiscalization (PECR) and printing a refund receipt 

If the prepayment was fiscalized through a software ECR (PECR), its return must also be accompanied by sending a fiscal receipt to the tax authority.

• Common mistake: cashiers often forget to tick the «Print refund receipt» checkbox when paying out money. As a result, the refund is processed only in the internal Torgsoft accounting system, but is not sent to the PECR or the tax authority, which creates discrepancies in Z-reports.

• If the refund receipt did not go through the PECR, you need to delete the refund document in Torgsoft and process it again, making sure to enable fiscal receipt printing.

2. Avoiding double acquiring charges for cashless refunds 

Entrepreneurs faced the following problem: when a customer pays to a current account, it is possible to enable "Do not include acquiring" in order to credit the full amount. However, when returning the funds, the program automatically deducted the acquiring fee, although in fact it was simply a reverse payment, for example via IBAN.

• Solution: in the «Payment payout by invoice» form in TWI, there is a "Do not include acquiring" switch, which is available only for the cashless payment method. If you enable this setting, a financial document for the acquiring amount will not be created during the refund.

3. Foreign currency invoices and conversion errors 

If the invoice is issued in a foreign currency, for example in dollars, and the prepayment was made in hryvnias, the following error could occur when trying to return the funds: "The refund amount cannot exceed the prepayment amount".

• This problem occurred because the system treated the prepayment as being in hryvnias, while the refund was attempted in the invoice currency.

• In the current versions of the program, the algorithm has been improved: now the "available" prepayment is calculated and stored in the invoice currency, regardless of the currency in which the funds were actually received. This eliminates artificial amount conflicts when creating outgoing invoices and refunds.

4. Enterprise selection during a refund 

If the prepayment was made to a current account linked to a specific enterprise (Sole Proprietorship), pay attention to selecting the correct enterprise during the refund. If you choose the cashless refund option, the list of current accounts will be filtered depending on the enterprise you specify in the refund window. This helps avoid confusion when one Sole Proprietorship accepted the advance payment, while the refund is accidentally debited from another.