7.10.7 Refunds

An option to be added to Beacon in Autumn 2024 is to be able to configure individual Finance Accounts to enable Refunds. This ensures that the original Transaction and the Refund are not included as Income/Expenditure in the Financial Statement.

For details of how to configure a Finance Account to allow Refunds see 8.6 Finance Set-up.

1. Background

If a Transaction is created to perform a Refund the net outcome in the Financial Statement includes the original amount and refunded amount as additional Income and Expenditure.

With this new facility Refunds are excluded from the Financial Statement and are linked to the original Transaction. Refunds also address Transactions allocated to multiple Finance Categories e.g. ‘Room Hire’ and ‘Catering’.

Refunds are usually made to return money received, but they can also be made against payments.

Refunds can be partial and made against different Finance Categories.

2. Refund Behaviours and Rules

The behaviour of Beacon Finance by default does not change unless the Beacon Admin or Treasurer takes action to allow Refunds on selected Accounts.

A Refund generates a Transaction that negates an earlier Transaction. It is linked to the Transaction it refunds and may be a partial Refund against one or more Categories. The elements of this are:

• For a Finance Account where Refunds are enabled, then when a Transaction is viewed there is a new option, Refund this transaction.
• The Refund process creates a new Refund Transaction that reciprocally links to the original Transaction with a new field, Refund Reference.
• A Refund Transaction must have a date that is more recent, by at least a day, than the original Transaction being refunded. The date must be in the Financial Year of the Transaction being refunded. In other words a Transaction and it’s Refund cannot staddle Financial Years.
• Transactions with a Refund Reference value instigate special calculations when producing a Financial Statement (the net value is reported).
• When Refund this Transaction is clicked a Refund screen is displayed. This is similar to the Transaction screen.
• When the Refund screen is completed and submitted, a new Transaction is created that counters the original Transaction with the reciprocal Refund Reference field populated with the Transaction number of its pair.
• The original Transaction shows the amount refunded and text added to highlight this.
• A Transaction that has a Refund against it can be Cleared, as can the Refund Transaction itself.
• If the Transaction is associated with a Member then the Refund is included in the Member Record screen (bottom right).
• If an account that is configured to implement Refunds has the feature revoked, then no new Refunds can be made on that account.

2.1 Original Transaction

When a Transaction is refunded there are restrictions on how the original Transaction can be edited over and above the current rules.

The user can easily navigate between a Transaction and the refunding Transaction it is paired with. This uses the ‘three dots’ link mechanism that Beacon uses for paired members with shared addresses.

2.2 Correcting Errors

• The refunding Transaction can be deleted if the original Transaction hasn’t been cleared.
• When a Refund Transaction is deleted the Refund reference is cleared on the original transaction. The means the Refund can be made again and is the way to correct errors.
• The original Transaction cannot be amended. To correct an error the user must delete the Refund Transaction, edit the original and apply the Refund again.
• It follows that when a Transaction has been refunded then it cannot be deleted. The Refund Transaction needs to be deleted first.

2.3 Excluded Transactions

• A Transaction older than the previous Financial Year cannot be refunded.
• A Cleared Transaction cannot be refunded (but it can be un-cleared first as long as it is in the current or previous Financial Year).
• The Refund this Transaction menu option is not available if there are Gift Aid eligible amounts that have already been claimed.
• If there are unclaimed Gift Aid amounts then the user will need to clear these first before the Transaction can be refunded.
• A Transaction that has been refunded cannot have another Refund made against it. Amend the existing refund instead.

3 Applying a Refund

To refund a Transaction, click the Refund this Transaction link:

Enter the amount in the Refund Amount £ and Refund Category boxes before pressing Save:

Additional information entered in the Detail and Payment Reference boxes will be displayed in the Ledger.

The number of the refunded Transaction is referenced in the Refund Transaction and vice-versa, along with a button with 3 dots that can be pressed to navigate to the related Transaction:

Original Transaction

Refund

Related Transaction numbers are also shown in a new Refund column in the Ledger. Refunds show in red text in the Ledger:

Revision History

v1	2024-09-08	Graeme Bunting	Initial article
v2	2024-09-28	John Alexander	Add caution about delayed implementation