Once an invoice has been paid (or partially paid), there are three ways to adjust the relationship: refund, credit, and write-off. They behave very differently — pick the right one.
Refund
Refund = money leaves your Stripe account and returns to the client's card. Use when the client paid and you are giving the cash back.
- Full refund: entire invoice amount reversed.
- Partial refund: a specific dollar amount.
- Fired from the invoice detail page → "Refund."
- Stripe fee on the original charge is NOT refunded (Stripe keeps their fee either way).
- Takes 5-10 business days to appear on the client's statement.
Credit note
Credit note = non-cash adjustment applied to future invoices. Use when the client is continuing to use your service and you just want to reduce what they owe next time.
- No money moves.
- The credit sits on the client account.
- Next invoice auto-applies the credit against the new balance.
- Fired from the client detail page → "Issue credit."
Write-off
Write-off = acknowledgment that money is uncollectable. Use when an invoice has aged past collection hope and you want to clean up your A/R report.
- No money moves.
- The invoice status flips to
written_off. - Drops out of the aging report.
- Dunning actions auto-cancel.
- Fired from the invoice detail page → "Write off."
Partial payments
Clients can pay any amount against an invoice, not just the full total. Partial payments update amount_paid_cents on the invoice; status flips to partial until fully paid. You can also record manual (cash/check) partial payments by clicking "Record payment" on the invoice.