Need to refund only a portion of a patient's invoice? Whether you have an invoice with one item or multiple items, it's fortunately easy to do this directly from the original invoice by creating what we call a 'credit note.' Below, we'll guide you through the steps.

If you're recording a partial refund for a patient’s invoice that only has one invoice item on it, you’ll want to do the following:

First, find the invoice you need to refund. In the example we're using, we can see that this patient had paid for their treatment for a total of $150:

To start the refund process, you'll now select the Reverse button at the top of the invoice:

This will bring you to a screen that looks very similar to an invoice, but it will say New credit note, and it will have the date that you're issuing it (which will usually be today's date):

From here, scroll down a bit, and you'll see credit note item fields that also look very similar to an invoice, except the invoice item quantity will be a negative number:

You'll now edit the unit price on the invoice item to match the partial amount you want to refund. Please note that how you adjust the unit price for a partial refund depends on your tax calculation method.

If your invoice item includes tax (for example, when using the tax inclusive method), adjusting the unit price will automatically factor in the tax rate and affect the total refund amount. For example, if the invoice item was originally $150 and you want to refund $30 of that, then set the unit price of the credit note item to be 30:

If you’re using the tax exclusive method, the unit price entered for the refund is treated as the pre-tax amount, and the tax will be added automatically.

Using the same figures, if you want to refund $30 from a $150 billable item and your tax rate is 10% with the tax exclusive method, you would enter a unit price of $27.27. Cliniko will then add the 10% tax so the total refund equals $30:

If you want to save that amount as account credit, then click "Create credit." If you returned the money to the patient and want to record that, click "Create credit and refund."

Now you're all set! If you selected "Create credit & refund" make sure to save your refund (which appears as a negative payment). You'll also see this refund listed in your Payments list, where it will have a "refund" flag next to it:

The partial refund will also be recorded in the payment reports as a negative number.

Keep in mind, the refund process for invoices with multiple invoice items is slightly different.

If a patient purchases some additional items when they come in for treatment—for example, maybe a yoga mat or some sort of at-home therapy device. You'll most likely have all of those things on the same invoice—but what happens if they want to return one of the multiple items they purchased? You'll have to record a partial refund.

To do this, find the invoice you need to refund. In the example we're using, we can see that this patient has purchased three things for a total of $65 (their treatment session, a neck pillow, and a spiky ball):

The patient has come back and said they'd like to return the spiky ball, because they realised they already have one. Not a problem! What you'll want to do first is press that Reverse button at the top of the invoice:

This will bring you to a screen that looks very similar to an invoice, but it will say New credit note, and it will have the date that you're issuing it (which will usually be today's date):

Scroll down a bit, and you'll see item fields that also look very similar to an invoice, except everything will have a negative number for the quantity:

Now, if you were refunding everything, you'd leave all those fields as they are, and simply press the Create credit & refund button (if you were giving money back to the patient), or the Create credit button (if you were converting what they'd paid into account credit to use towards something in the future).

However, in this case, we're only refunding one item—the spiky ball. What we're going to do is remove the items that we don't want to record a refund for, by pressing the "Remove" buttons until only the item we wish to refund remains.

Below is an example of of this process in action:

We've removed the items we don't need, therefore recording a refund only for the spiky ball ($5). At the end of the process, we can see that we have a new credit note, and it indicates what was refunded, as well as which invoice it's a reversal of:

And that's it! We've now recorded a partial refund! 🎉 We can also see this refund in the overall Payments list, where it will have a "refund" flag next to it:

This refund will also be recorded in the payment reports as a negative number.

If you have more questions about refunds, head over here, and also feel free to reach out to our support team for assistance!