Recording a refund enables schools to report refunds they have issued to families. While the institution still handles the actual refund of the money collected, this functionality allows them to record that refund so that it can be displayed in the FACTS system. It also ensures that reporting in FACTS is accurate to the number of payments actually received at the institution.
What You Need to Know Before Recording a Refund
- Paid funds must be recorded or processed through our system to have a refund applied towards them.
- You cannot record a larger refund than the amount shown as paid in our system.
- Refunds decrease the amount paid, which will increase the remaining balance. You may need to process a second transaction to remove the balance if it is not owed.
- The balance will decrease when refunding for Prepay Accounts. For instructions specific to Prepay Accounts, see Recording a Refund for Prepay Accounts.
- Refunds can be processed on any activity type – payment plans, incidentals, or prepay.
- If you record a refund in error, you can reverse the refund. See Reverse an Institution Issued Refund for more information.
- You cannot record an institution issued refund for ‘Immediate Full Payment’ payment plans.
Navigation
- Click Roster on the top navigation bar.
- Click Select next to the customer to be updated.
- Click Service Agreement, Service Other Billing, or Service Prepays depending on where the funds were paid.
- Select Record an Institution Issued Refund from the service options.
Record the Refund
- Account: Select the account where the funds were paid. If you need to refund from multiple accounts, you’ll need to process the refund from each separately.
- Refund Amount: Enter the amount you refunded the customer or student.
- Reason for This Refund: Select a reason to indicate why the refund was given.
- Description: This field is optional. Use this area if you need to clarify the reason. It is displayed to the customer.
- Apply to Payments: Select how the refund amount will be applied to the remaining scheduled payments. This section is not applicable for Prepay Accounts.
- Adjustment Amount: This amount may prefill based on the application option you selected. If not, enter the amount to apply to each payment.
- Send Notice of Change Email: The box is selected by default. If this option does not appear, the customer does not have a valid email address on file.
- Comments: Use this area to make notes about the change. The customer cannot see the comments.
- Click Save to record the refund.
What’s Next?
Now that you’ve applied a refund, the balance due for payment plans or billing has increased. You have several options for removing the balance depending on how you’d like it to be reflected in reports.
- Apply a Correction: Use this option to remove charges if you’d like reports to reflect a reduced assessed amount.
- Apply a Credit: Use this option to leave the assessed amount unchanged but apply an offsetting credit for a selected adjustment reason.
Reporting and History
When refunds are recorded, a line is added to the Transaction and Change histories in the customer profile as well as the Payments tab. Consumers will also see the change in their user account in the Transactions, Changes, and Payments Made tabs.
You can view a list of refunds in the Payment Activity report. This report has the benefit of showing you not only the refunds recorded but also any refunds that were reversed.
For more information, please visit this HubHelp article: Recording an Institution Issued Refund.
To view all HubHelp articles, make sure you are logged into FACTS before viewing.
