# Mark an invoice paid, void it, or refund it

> Record a cash or check payment, cancel an invoice that should never have been raised, and understand why refunds only happen in Stripe.

Source: https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/billing/mark-an-invoice-paid-void-or-refund-it
Section: Billing and payments. For: Admins, Owners, Dispatchers, Instructors.

Open the invoice from `Billing` (web console). Mark paid records money that
arrived some other way: choose how it was paid (cash, check, card in person, bank transfer
or other), the check number, and the day it arrived. Void cancels an invoice that should
never have been raised, and only works while it is still unpaid. There is no refund in
AerScheduler: a refund is done in your own Stripe dashboard.

**Who can do this:** Owners, Admins, Dispatchers, Instructors

## Mark an invoice paid after cash, check or bank transfer

1. **Find the invoice on Billing**

   Use the date range and the Status filter to narrow the list, or open the invoice from the
   Recent invoices panel on the Dashboard.

2. **Click Mark paid**

   It is in the row menu on the invoice table, and on the invoice detail panel itself.

   ![Invoice detail panel](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/invoice-detail-panel.png)

3. **Say how it was paid**

   Choose **How it was paid**: Cash, Check, Card in person, Bank transfer or Other. For a check,
   type the **Check number** if you want it on the record. **Date received** starts at today, in
   your organization's own time zone; change it to the day the money actually arrived. It
   cannot be a day in the future. **Note** is for your own records, such as which deposit it went
   in with.

4. **Click Mark paid**

What that does:

- The invoice flips to Paid here, and in Stripe it is recorded as paid out of band.
- The invoice says how it was paid, on your side and on the payer's: "Paid by check #1234 on
  Oct 3". The date is the date received, not the day you clicked.
- Who marked it paid, and how, is recorded on the invoice's audit trail.
- The person billed gets a Payment received email that says how they paid, and a push
  notification if they use the app. An aircraft owner who has not signed up gets the email
  too, at the address you keep for them.
- Your note stays with you. The person billed never sees it.
- If QuickBooks sync is on, a Sales Receipt is created. See
  [Send paid invoices to QuickBooks Online](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/billing/send-paid-invoices-to-quickbooks).
- If the member was grounded for unpaid invoices and this takes them under the threshold,
  they are released automatically.
- The **Payments received** report shows the method, and has **Received**, **Check #** and
  **Payment note** columns you can turn on. Its date window is still the day you recorded
  the payment.

> **Note:** The iOS app's Mark as Paid does not ask how it was paid yet. A payment marked there is
> recorded as received today, with no method. Mark it from the web console when you want the
> method and check number on the record.

Things that can stop you:

- **"You cannot pay an invoice that has already been voided."** A voided invoice is
  finished. Raise a new one instead.
- **"The date received cannot be in the future."** The day the money arrived is today or
  earlier, in your organization's time zone.
- **"A check number goes with a payment by check."** Choose Check, or leave the number out.
- **Stripe could not be reached.** You get a warning rather than an error, saying the
  invoice was marked paid here but Stripe could not be updated. The invoice is correct in
  AerScheduler; go and mark it paid in Stripe too, or the two will not agree.
- **Stripe shows it already paid by card.** If the person paid online a moment before you
  clicked, the invoice is recorded as a card payment, and what you typed is not kept.

## Record check or cash on a package booking

For a discovery or other package-price booking, you do not have to open Billing. On the
booking itself, desk staff, the instructor on it, or the person who created it can click
**Record check** or **Record cash**. That marks the invoice paid the same way Mark
paid does.

If the booking is on the calendar but the invoice never went out, the banner says
**Invoice did not go out**. Send the Stripe invoice from there, or record the check
or cash, so close-out does not bill Hobbs a second time.

See [Charge a package price when booked](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/billing/charge-a-package-price-when-booked).

## Void an invoice

Voiding is for an invoice that should never have existed: a duplicate, a booking billed to
the wrong person, a flight that never happened.

1. **Open the invoice and click Void**

   Also available from the row menu on the Billing table.

2. **Confirm**

   The dialog says this marks the invoice as void and that it cannot be undone. It means it.

The invoice is voided here and in Stripe, who voided it is recorded, and from then on it
stops counting toward the Outstanding total, toward the grounding threshold, and toward
every financial report.

> **Careful:** You cannot void an invoice that has already been paid: "You cannot void an invoice that has
> already been paid." Voiding is not an undo for a payment. Once money has moved, the only
> correction is a refund in Stripe.

## Voiding a past flight's only invoice

If the invoice you are voiding is the only one on a booking that already flew and was
never canceled, voiding it would leave that flight with no invoice at all. AerScheduler
asks first instead of doing that silently:

- **Void and leave unbilled** voids it and stops there. The flight shows up wherever your
  unbilled work is tracked, for you to bill later by hand.
- **Void and open close-out** voids it and takes you straight to the booking so you can
  correct the close-out and raise a new invoice in the same visit.
- **Cancel** backs out and leaves the invoice exactly as it was.

Voiding an invoice that is not a past flight's only invoice, such as a duplicate on a
booking with another live invoice, skips this and just voids.

## Refunds happen in your Stripe dashboard

There is no refund action in AerScheduler. Not in the web console, not in the iOS app, not
in the API.

To refund somebody, sign in to your school's own Stripe dashboard, find the payment, and
refund it there.

## What a refund does not change in AerScheduler

> **Important:** A refund made in Stripe is not read back into AerScheduler. The invoice stays Paid, it
> keeps counting as revenue in the Revenue and Payments received reports, and if QuickBooks
> sync is on, the Sales Receipt stays in QuickBooks. Nothing here will tell you the money
> went back.

Keep your own note of refunds and correct them on your own books. If you refund often
enough that this hurts, the practical habit is to record the refund in QuickBooks by hand
on the same day you issue it in Stripe.

## Voiding one share of a split booking

On a booking split between several people, each payer holds their own invoice.

Voiding one of them does not hand that share to the others. Their invoices are unchanged,
and the booking becomes partially billed rather than unbilled.

> **Careful:** **Create invoice** on the booking will not fill that gap, on either surface. It is hidden
> while anybody on the booking still holds a live invoice, which is exactly the state you are
> in. Raise a [manual invoice](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/billing/create-a-manual-invoice) for that one payer
> instead. It only comes back if you void every invoice on the booking.

## Who is allowed to do this

| Role            | Mark paid (Billing) | Record check/cash on a package booking      | Void | Send reminder |
| --------------- | ------------------- | ------------------------------------------- | ---- | ------------- |
| Owner           | Yes                 | Yes                                         | Yes  | Yes           |
| Admin           | Yes                 | Yes                                         | Yes  | Yes           |
| Dispatcher      | No                  | Yes, on bookings they collect               | No   | No            |
| Instructor      | No                  | Yes, on bookings they instructed or created | No   | No            |
| Student, renter | No                  | No                                          | No   | No            |

Dispatchers cannot open the Billing page at all. Full detail in
[Who can see and do what in billing](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/billing/who-can-do-what-in-billing).

## Related

- [Charge a package price when booked](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/billing/charge-a-package-price-when-booked): Send the invoice or record a check on the booking itself.
- [Chase an unpaid invoice](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/billing/chase-unpaid-invoices): Reminders and grounding, for the invoices you do want paid.
- [Billing troubleshooting](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/billing/billing-troubleshooting): Wrong amounts, missing invoices, and the behaviour that catches people out.