Troubleshooting
Role: Administrator · Accountant · BookkeeperArea: Refunds, Accounting · All product versions
Permissions
You need the Create payment refund permission. If you don't have it, contact your admin.
What you're seeing
A refund that was recorded on an invoice has been deleted, and you need to put the refund record back. The invoice may now show the payment as if it was never refunded, or the balance may be off. This usually affects a single invoice where someone removed the refund — often while trying to correct a mistake — and now the accounting record needs to be restored.
Why this happens
There are 2 common reasons.
Reason 1
Deleting a refund removes only the ServiceTitan record, not the money at your gateway.
Deleting a refund in ServiceTitan removes only the refund record inside ServiceTitan — it does not reverse the money at your payment gateway. So when the record is gone but the refund has already moved (or the gateway already handled it), you need to re-create the refund record in ServiceTitan without sending the customer money a second time.
Reason 2
The path to restore the record depends on your tenant's refund setup.
The exact path depends on whether your tenant uses the Automated Refund Workflow or legacy (manual) refunds. If the Automated Refund Workflow is turned on (Invoicing > Payment Collections), use Check 1. If your tenant uses legacy (manual) refunds, use Check 2.
How to fix it
Run these checks in order. Most issues are resolved by Check 1.
Caution: Deleting a refund does not reverse the money at your payment gateway. If the refund already went back to the customer, do not send another live refund when you re-create the record, or you will refund the customer twice. This is why both Check 1 and Check 2 use a method that records the refund without moving money.
Note: Refund is available on credit card payments. Check and cash refunds follow a separate flow and require the Automated Refund Workflow to be enabled.
1Re-create the refund with the Automated Refund Workflow
Use this if the Automated Refund Workflow is turned on for your tenant.
Search for and open the invoice where the refund was deleted.
In the Payments section, find the original payment and click Refund to start the Automated Refund Workflow.
For Refund Reason, select Other and add a note such as "Re-adding deleted refund."
Enter the same refund amount as the refund that was deleted.
Under Refund Method, select Process credit card refund outside of ServiceTitan. This records the refund without sending money back to the customer.
Confirm the refund details and click Process Refund to recreate the accounting record.
✓ Done · The refund record reappears on the invoice with a Refunded tag, and the balance reflects the refund without any money being sent to the customer.
2If your tenant uses legacy (manual) refunds, create an adjustment invoice
Use this if the Automated Refund Workflow is not enabled for your tenant.
Post the original invoice to finalize its current state.
Create a new adjustment invoice linked to the original one.
On the adjustment invoice, add a negative payment. Set the amount to the value of the refund, and choose Refund as the payment type. Click Save — do not click Charge, because payment processors will not accept negative charges.
Save the adjustment invoice. This adjusts the balance to reflect the refund without sending the transaction to accounting software.
✓ Done · The original invoice balance returns to net zero, and the adjustment invoice shows the negative refund total.
3If the invoice shows a negative balance afterward
Use this if the balance is off after re-creating the refund record.
Check whether a negative task was automatically added to the refund invoice.
If so, delete the negative task from the refund invoice.
Make sure there is a positive task for the refund amount on the original invoice.
Add a negative task for the same amount on the R-1 refund invoice if needed.
Review the invoice to confirm it shows the correct balance.
✓ Done · The invoice no longer shows a negative balance, and the refund amount is correctly reflected.
Still not working?
Contact ServiceTitan Technical Support at go.servicetitan.com/ask with:
The customer name and the invoice number where the refund was deleted
The original payment details (amount, date, transaction ID) and the deleted refund amount
Whether your tenant uses the Automated Refund Workflow or legacy (manual) refunds
Which checks from this article you already tried
Want to learn more?
Invoice shows negative balance after refund adjustment invoice deleted ›
Related troubleshooting article.
Refund cannot be voided or canceled directly in ServiceTitan ›
Related troubleshooting article.
Set up the Automated Refund Workflow ›
Setup guide for the Automated Refund Workflow.