For customers struggling to pay, you may need to issue them a credit or adjustment to help them cope with the current situation. During COVID-19, companies across many industries have seen a spike in subscribers that can't make payments, resulting in the need for large volumes of credits and refunds. The challenge is, it's difficult for finance departments to issue these balance adjustments without spending time manually processing each one. That simply won't scale fast enough with this situation.
If you are facing this challenge, learn how to immediately take advantage of the bulk credits and refunds capabilities in Zuora. Not only will it ensure a longer term customer relationship, it also saves your team from being consumed by repetitive manual work.
Strategies
Credits - Two Concepts to Consider
- Credit Balance allows you to hold onto "credit" that can be applied to future invoices or refunded to the customer. You would give a customer a credit if they are staying your customer.
- Refunds is actual money given back to the customer for service not used. A refund is given to a customer who may have canceled service with your company and is no longer a customer.
Additional Strategies
Video Tutorials: Credit Balances, Refunds, and Credit Memos
Revenue Impacts
Caveats and Warnings
References vs. Non-referenced refunds
- Referenced refunds are linked to the original payment method, using a unique identifier of the payment. There is a digital record of the purchase.
- Non-referenced refunds can be issued to any payment method, including a credit card for Electronic refunds, on the customer's account, and it can use any payment gateway for which Zuora supports this type of transaction. No digital record.
Where are Credit Memos on the Aging Report?
- Accounting period Aging report
- Account Level Aging: Includes Credit memos, Debit Memos, Unapplied Payments
- Invoice Level Aging: Includes Invoice Aging only
- Debit Memo Aging: Includes Debit Memo Aging only
- Reports are as of the last day of the Accounting period
- Must run the trial balance to get an updated report
- Reporting tool Aging Report
- Create your invoice aging own report with the fields selected
- Debit Memo report is a separate report- DM created over time
- Live report: Once a customer makes a payment, the invoice will no longer show on this report
- Can schedule the report to run and email to yourself
Frequently Asked Questions
Watch video to learn more
- I don’t have credit balance in my environment?
Email Support@zuora.com to have the feature enabled
- I can’t add the invoice item adjustment charge back to the invoice after it was written off?
Email Support@zuora.com to have the feature enabled
- How do I add a written off charge back to an invoice? Do I have to re-open the period?
Do NOT re-open any closed accounting periods. Process in the current period an IIA, add the amount in the charge box and save.
- How do I change accounting codes to a bad-debt account?
First, you have to verify that a bad debt account is set up in the Chart of Accounts; then choose the bad debt accounting code from the drop down when it is created.
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