Invoices, Payments and Refunds

Work the Billing hub — invoice buckets, payment statuses, refund rules, the penalty-fee review queue and deposit tracking.

The Billing hub (Operations → Billing) pulls your facility's money into three tabs: Invoices, Payments and Fees. Managers and above can see it; only Admins can issue refunds.

The Payments tab

Every payment your facility takes lands here. Use the filter row — "Show me [status] for [period]" — plus the search box (customer, pet or payment reference) to narrow the list.

Status pills:

Pending — awaiting capture or settlement
Processing — in flight with the provider
Paid — captured successfully
Failed — the charge didn't go through
Refunded — fully returned to the customer
Refund pending — a refund is committed but not yet confirmed by the provider
Refund failed — the refund attempt failed; the original charge still stands
Reversed — a counter payment that was recorded by mistake and reversed; it stays on the list for the record but never counts as money

Three summary cards sit above the list — Payments collected (net cash: payments received minus refunds, including penalty fees), Completed Payments and Pending Payments. Click a card to filter the list; click again to clear. The cards honour whatever period and search you have active.

Each row shows the date, the pet (with its location, linking through to the booking), how the payment was taken, the amount and the status. The method reads Cash, EFTPOS, Bank transfer or Other for counter payments and Stripe or Square for card payments; any bank reference or receipt number staff typed sits under it, and the search box finds it. A partly refunded payment shows how much has been refunded under the amount. Payments against a consolidated invoice (no booking attached) show the invoice number instead.

At the bottom of the tab you'll find Recent Credit Notes and Recent Overpayments panels — the latest handful for each, with the customer, amount and date.

The Invoices tab

Invoices are triaged into buckets, each with an exact count on the pill:

Overdue — owing and past its due date; chase these first
Awaiting payment — owing but not yet overdue (sent or part-paid)
Paid, Draft and Void — by status
All invoices — everything, newest first

The period filter can run on issue date or due date — switch the basis in the date dropdown when you're reconciling what's due in a window rather than what was raised in it. Search works across invoice number, customer name and pet name.

Three cards summarise the money: Outstanding (the unpaid balance across every owing invoice — a live figure that ignores the period filter), Overdue (the slice of outstanding that's past due — decided by the due date itself, not a status flag) and Collected (cash applied to paid invoices within the selected period). Overdue and awaiting sort oldest-due first so the most urgent invoices sit on top.

Recording counter money

Cash, your own EFTPOS terminal, bank transfers and anything else taken outside Stripe or Square are recorded by staff and land in the payment ledger as counter payments. Three places record them:

Mark Paid on a booking's invoice card settles the whole outstanding balance.
Record part payment on the same card records an amount towards the balance.
Record offline payment on the Deposit card records the booking's deposit. A counter deposit credits the booking's invoice, so a later Mark Paid only collects the remainder. If the invoice's remaining balance is already smaller than the deposit, the deposit is refused — record a part payment for the balance instead.

Every one of them asks how the money was taken — cash, EFTPOS, bank transfer or other — and there is no way to record counter money without a method. The record also keeps who recorded it, which location took it and the date it was received.

On Mark Paid and Record offline payment the date defaults to today in the facility's timezone; a bank transfer that arrived earlier can be back-dated up to 31 days, never into the future. Bank transfers and "other" can also carry a reference there (the bank reference or receipt number). Record part payment asks for the amount and the method only — it is recorded as received today, with no reference. To back-date a bank transfer or keep its reference, use Mark Paid for the full balance.

Two guards stop a card sale being counted twice at the counter: a counter record is refused while a card-terminal checkout is still in progress for the booking (you can override it with a reason if the terminal has failed), and refused when a card payment already covers the amount.

Managers and above can record counter money by default; an owner can grant it to front-desk staff for a location through a custom role.

Correcting counter money

Counter payments are never edited or deleted. There are two ways to correct one, and they mean different things — pick the one that matches what actually happened. Both live on the payment's row in the Payments tab, and only Admins see them by default.

Reverse — the payment was recorded by mistake

Use Reverse when no money changed hands: the payment was keyed twice, recorded against the wrong invoice, or recorded as paid when it wasn't.

Find the payment on the Payments tab and select Reverse.
Give a reason (at least five characters) — it is kept with the payment.
Confirm.

The payment stays on the list marked Reversed (hover the badge to see the reason), and who reversed it and when are kept with the payment. It stops counting as money everywhere: totals, the day's takings and Xero. The invoice balance opens up again — a fully paid invoice goes back to part-paid, or to sent (overdue if it is past its due date) when nothing else has been paid — and the booking's paid and deposit flags follow. The customer is not emailed.

A payment can't be reversed when:

money has already been handed back on it — record a counter refund for the rest instead;
it has already been posted to Xero — record a counter refund instead, so your books show the money going back out;
it went through Stripe or Square — card payments are refunded through the provider.

Record counter refund — you handed money back

Use Record counter refund when you actually gave money back at the desk — cash out of the drawer, a refund on your own EFTPOS terminal, or a bank transfer back to the customer.

Find the payment on the Payments tab and select Record counter refund.
Enter the amount you handed back. It can be part of the payment; it can't be more than is still held on it.
Choose how the money went back — this can differ from how it came in (for example, paid by cash and refunded to their card on your EFTPOS terminal).
Give a reason. Both the method and the reason are required, and you are recorded as the person who issued the refund.
Confirm.

This records the refund; it does not move any money itself, so hand the money over first. The refund shows under the payment ("$20.00 refunded"), a refund of the whole amount marks the payment Refunded, and the invoice balance and the customer's credit note update. The customer gets the usual refund email. If your Xero connection maps a clearing account per counter method, the refund is booked to the account for the method the money went back by. Pressing the button twice, or retrying after a dropped connection, never records the refund twice — the form can't be closed while a refund is being recorded, and if the refund had already gone through it tells you so instead of recording it again.

Refunds

Only Admins can refund a payment.

To refund a booking payment:

Open the booking and select Initiate Refund.
Enter the amount — the full payment or a partial amount — and optionally a reason.
Confirm. The money goes back through the original provider (Stripe or Square).

The rules that apply:

The Initiate Refund button refunds online card payments through Stripe or Square. Cash, EFTPOS, bank transfer and other counter payments have no card to refund — record the money you hand back with Record counter refund on the Payments tab (see Correcting counter money).
Partial refunds are supported on booking payments. A partial refund leaves the payment marked Paid; a full refund flips it to Refunded.
Payments on consolidated invoices are refunded from the Payments tab and are full amount only — partial refunds aren't supported there.
Watch the Refund pending and Refund failed statuses: pending means the refund is in flight, failed means the attempt didn't complete and the charge still stands — retry it or reconcile manually.

Card payments that arrive after a booking is cancelled

If a customer pays for a booking that has already been cancelled — for example they tap their card on a Square Terminal just after staff cancelled the booking, or they finish an online Square payment link from an old email — WagDay records the payment and then refunds it automatically, one refund per card payment. The refund goes back through Square, and the booking's invoice is left exactly as it was, because that money never counted towards it. You'll see the payment on the booking marked Refunded (or Refund pending while Square processes it). If the refund can't be issued straight away, WagDay keeps retrying it and flags it to WagDay support if it stays stuck.

Cancelling a booking also asks Square to cancel a Terminal charge that's still waiting on the reader, so the customer can't pay it by mistake. If the customer taps their card before the cancellation reaches the reader, Square completes the payment first, and WagDay refunds it automatically as described above.

The Fees tab (penalty review)

The Fees tab lists your no-show and late-cancellation fees with the pills Pending, Processing, Completed, Failed and Waived, plus all-time cards for Total Charged, Total Waived and Outstanding (Failed).

When your policy charges automatically, the fee hits the customer's card straight away. When it doesn't, the fee lands here as Pending for a human decision. From a fee's row menu you can:

Issue charge — charge the customer's saved card now
Waive fee — write it off; a reason is required and logged for audit
Retry charge — for a failed fee (the customer's card may need updating)

Each fee's detail view shows the rule that produced it — for example, "No-show fee — 100% of $80.00" — so staff can see exactly why the amount is what it is. The Configure policy button jumps to Settings → Policies, where the fee percentages and notice period live. See No-show and late cancellation charges for the policy side.

Payment Policy defaults

A new facility defaults to Full Payment Required once a payment provider (Stripe or Square) is connected — full payment is required before a booking is confirmed. Until you connect a provider, your facility stays on No Payment Required and Settings → Policies prompts you to connect one. Connecting a provider later applies the default to new bookings only — it never changes bookings already made, and it never touches an existing facility's saved Payment Policy. You can choose Deposit Required or No Payment Required instead at any time in Settings → Policies → Payment Policy, whether or not a provider is connected.

Deposits

Deposits are configured per service and tracked per booking:

Catalog → Services — edit a service and set a deposit: either a percentage of the booking price or a fixed amount.
Settings → Policies → Payment Policy — choose whether bookings need a deposit, full payment, or no payment before they're confirmed.
Settings → Policies → Deposit Refund Policy — decide what happens to a captured deposit on cancellation: forfeit it, always refund it, or refund it only when cancelled inside the notice window. Note that only Stripe-paid deposits can be auto-refunded.

On the booking itself, the Deposit card shows a Paid/Unpaid badge, the amount, when it was paid and who recorded it. For an unpaid deposit you can Collect deposit online (opens the provider's hosted checkout to take the card then and there) or Record offline payment (cash, EFTPOS, bank transfer or other at the counter — you choose the method, and it lands in the payment ledger and credits the invoice). An unpaid deposit counts as money owing and can block check-in unless a manager defers it.

For the big picture, Reports → Deposits lists deposit amounts and payment status across bookings in a selected range.

Invoices, Payments and Refunds

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