Fixing payment mistakes — void, refund, waive
Undo a mis-keyed payment, return money, or write off a fee — and know which one you actually need.
Nothing is ever deleted
Every payment lives in an append-only ledger. Corrections are made by adding a reversing entry, never by erasing the original.
That is why a cancelled payment stays visible, greyed out, instead of disappearing. Your history stays honest and your totals stay auditable.
Four different actions
Picking the wrong one is the most expensive mistake on this page.
| You want to | Use | Effect on revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Undo a payment typed in wrongly | Cancel payment | Removed — as if never recorded |
| Give money back to a student | Refund | Deducted, shown as a negative entry |
| Write off a fee you will not collect | Waiver | Excluded — was never revenue |
| Undo an entire membership | Cancel membership | Everything on that fee reversed |
Cancel payment — one entry only
This removes a single payment. Wrong amount, wrong student, wrong payment mode, entered twice.
It reverses that one ledger row and nothing else. If a student paid a fee in four instalments and the third was keyed wrong, cancelling it leaves the other three untouched.
This is the important one to get right. Cancel payment is not the same as Cancel membership — that reverses every payment on the fee and kills it entirely. Reach for the wrong one on a fee with several payments and you undo work that was correct.
The voided row stays on screen, dimmed, so anyone looking later can see what happened rather than wondering why the numbers moved.
Refund — money actually goes back
Use this when the student physically gets money back — cash returned, a UPI transfer reversed.
It appears as a negative entry and reduces your revenue for the period.
Do not use Refund to fix a typing mistake. If no money left your hand, it was never a refund — cancel the payment instead. Using Refund for a keying error makes your books show cash movement that never happened.
Waiver — the fee will not be collected
For a fee you have decided to forgive: a scholarship place, a goodwill gesture, a student in difficulty.
A waiver is excluded from revenue rather than deducted from it. It was never money you had. That keeps your collection rate honest — waived fees do not read as failures to collect.
Always give a reason
Every correction takes a reason. Write a real one.
"Wrong amount" tells you nothing in March. "Typed 5000 instead of 500, corrected same day" answers the question before it is asked.
The Activity log records who made the correction, but only you can record why.
Overpayment goes to the wallet
If a student pays more than the fee requires, you can bank the excess as credit rather than trying to force the numbers to match.
That credit sits in their wallet and is offered against their next fee. See Referrals & student wallet.
Who can do this
Corrections need fees → manage permission. Anyone with view-only access to fees can see payments but cannot reverse them — which is the correct arrangement for a front desk that records payments but should not be able to erase them.
Need help?
Still need help? Email support@studiopartner.app
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