Troubleshooting
Role: Administrator · Accountant · Bookkeeper · Office AdminArea: Accounting, Invoicing, Payments · All versions
Before you start: You need Payments permissions to unapply payments, create adjustment invoices, and add negative payments. If you don't have them, contact your admin. These steps apply to invoices that have already been exported to your accounting system.
What you're seeing
You try to delete a payment on an invoice and ServiceTitan blocks it with the error Payments that are posted or exported cannot be deleted. The payment — or the credit it created — is tied to an invoice that has already been exported to your accounting system.
This can show up a few ways:
A single payment you need to reverse.
A credit created when a payment was entered twice.
A credit that doesn't appear when you try to apply it.
A payment that still shows on the printed invoice after you tried to back it out.
Why this happens
There are 3 common reasons.
Reason 1
The payment or invoice is locked because it was exported.
Once a payment or invoice has been exported to your accounting system, ServiceTitan locks it so it can't be deleted or edited directly, which keeps your ServiceTitan records and your accounting records in sync. Instead of deleting, you reverse the payment or credit by moving it through an adjustment invoice.
Reason 2
The credit doesn't appear when you go to apply it.
This happens because the payment wasn't fully unapplied into available credit.
Reason 3
The payment still shows on the printed invoice even after you back it out.
How to fix it
Run these checks in order. Most issues are resolved by Check 1.
1Reverse the exported payment or credit with an adjustment invoice
Use this if you need to reverse a single exported payment or the credit it created.
Search for and go to the invoice. If you need the payment to become a credit, unapply the payment first.
On the invoice, click Add an adjustment invoice.
On the adjustment invoice, add a placeholder task for the same amount as the credit you want to remove. (The task doesn't need to match the original task.)
Go back to the original invoice, click Collect and apply payment, select the credit, apply it to the adjustment invoice, and click Save.
Go back to the adjustment invoice and add a negative payment equal to the credit you're removing. For example, to remove $100.00, enter "-100.00". Click Save.
Remove the placeholder task from the adjustment invoice and click Save.
Note: The placeholder task is removed at the very end (after the credit is applied), and no final zero-out task is needed — the negative payment offsets the balance.
✓ Done · The adjustment invoice nets to zero, the original payment or credit is reversed, and the customer's balance reflects the correction.
2If the credit doesn't appear when you go to apply it
Use this if the credit from Check 1 doesn't show up as available to apply.
Unapply the payment so the full amount goes to the customer's available credit. (The payment is already exported and can't be edited, so the amount has to sit as available credit first.)
On the original invoice, click Collect and apply payment, choose the credit, and apply only a partial amount.
On the adjustment invoice, add a task for the remaining amount. Adjust the pricing as needed to account for taxes.
Go back to the original invoice and click Collect and apply payment again.
Apply the remaining credit to the adjustment invoice.
Note: If a customer made a payment that should have created a credit, check whether the payment was fully applied.
✓ Done · The full credit clears and the adjustment invoice balance reaches zero.
3If the payment still shows on the printed invoice
Use this if the payment was backed out but still prints on the invoice.
Create a placeholder job.
On the job screen, click the Edit icon, select No Charge/Non-Opportunity, and click Save.
On the invoice for the placeholder job, add a placeholder task.
Go to the original invoice where the payment needs to be canceled and click Unapply Payment on the payment.
Go back to the placeholder job, apply the payment to that invoice, and delete the placeholder task.
Assign a technician to the placeholder job and close the job.
✓ Done · When the invoice is printed, the incorrect payment no longer appears and the total is correct.
Still not working?
Contact ServiceTitan Technical Support at go.servicetitan.com/ask with:
The customer name and the invoice number the payment or credit is on.
The payment or credit amount, the date, and which accounting system it was exported to.
The exact error message you saw (for example, "Payments that are posted or exported cannot be deleted").
Which checks from this article you already tried and where it stopped working.
Want to learn more?
Create an adjustment invoice ›
How to build the adjustment invoice used throughout these checks.
How to Resolve Error When Issuing Refund in ServiceTitan ›
For when you need a refund rather than a reversal.