Refunding as store credit
Issuing credit instead of cash, and how it is redeemed once.
Choosing "Replace / Re-use in next order (Store Credit)" as a
refund's method pays the customer in credit instead
of cash: the refund record itself becomes the credit — a REF- slip worth the refund
amount, spendable once at a future checkout.
Who can do this: the same roles that raise refunds; spending happens at checkout.
The slip's life#
A store-credit refund sits Pending until spent. From there its journey is the customer's, not yours:
- Applying it at checkout claims it for that order — it shows as being spent there, and no other order can take it.
- The order's payment completing settles it — the credit becomes Completed, permanently.
- The order cancelling releases it — back to Pending, spendable again.
Those middle hops are the system's alone. Trying to complete a credit by hand is refused with the full explanation: "a store credit settles when the customer spends it at checkout, not by hand — cancel it instead if it should not be redeemable." What staff can do is cancel an unspent credit — the honest way to withdraw one.
The claim itself is airtight: two tills applying the same slip at once — one wins, the other gets a refusal naming the winner: "store credit 'REF-…' was just used on order 'ORD-…' — remove it from this order and try again."
Exchanges: the natural flow#
Complete the return → refund it as store credit → start the replacement order from the return. The new order opens with the customer attached and spends the credit as payment — one continuous motion, three honest records. Only a completed return can be exchanged.