Account Credit - What It Is and Where It Comes From

Account credit is money a community is holding for one billing account. It sits there until someone applies it to an invoice, or until it is paid back out.

Where credit comes from

There are two ways an account ends up with credit.

• Someone paid more than they owed, or paid without an invoice to put it against. When you record a payment you can choose to hold it on account rather than applying it, and the leftover of an overpayment lands there too.
• A refund was issued as credit rather than as money back. When you refund a payment you choose between returning the money and keeping it with the community as credit. Choosing credit leaves the money where it is and marks it as belonging to that account.

Where you see it

• On the unit's billing account, as the available credit figure.
• On an invoice, as "Available to Allocate" when you go to apply credit to it.
• In the resident's payment portal, under their billing details, with the history behind it.

The credit figure is money you can actually spend

If the account shows $70.00 of credit, you can apply $70.00. That sounds obvious, and it is now true: previously the figure could include money the system would then refuse to let you spend, and you would only find out when applying it failed.

Credit history

Every account keeps a history of its credit, with two kinds of line:

• In. Credit arrived: a payment held on account, or a refund issued as credit.
• Out. Credit was applied to an invoice, naming which one.

The difference between the two always equals the credit currently available. If it does not, tell support: that is a discrepancy worth looking at, not a rounding quirk.

A refund does not erase history. If credit was applied to an invoice and that payment is later refunded, the original application stays in the history and the refund appears alongside it. You are looking at what happened, not at a version of events rewritten after the fact.

What credit is not

Credit is not a discount and it does not reduce what an invoice is for. It is money on hand, and applying it pays the invoice the same way a payment does. The invoice total never changes.