Recording Credit Memos

Credit memos show when a customer no longer owes you money or when you owe a customer money. Credit memos may occur because your customer returns items that you previously sold to him or her. Credit memos may also occur because you issue a customer a refund for some other good reason — perhaps the product wasn't of the quality that you usually sell, or a service wasn't provided in the manner in which it should have been.

To record a credit memo, first display the Create Credit Memos/Refunds window by choosing Customers ð Create Credit Memos/Refunds command. Then follow these steps:

1. Identify the customer, or the customer and the job, in the Customer:Job box.

   Use the Class box for class tracking if you've decided to do that (see Figure 1). If you have questions about how either of these boxes works, refer to the earlier discussion about these two boxes. These boxes work the same way for credit memos as they do for invoices.

   Figure 1: The Create Credit Memos/Refunds window
   
   
   

2. Provide the credit memo date, credit memo number, and confirm customer information.

   Credit memos, like invoices and sales receipts, include a header. This header includes the transaction date, number, and the customer information. You should confirm that the credit memo header information is correct on the Create Credit Memos/Refunds window. If it isn't, edit the default information that QuickBooks uses to fill the Create Credit Memos/Refunds window.

3. In the columns area of the Create Credit Memos/Refunds window, describe the reason for the credit memo.

   If the customer returned items, for example, use the columns to describe these items and the original price that you are refunding.

4. Click the Print button to print the credit memo.

5. Click either Save & Close or Save & New to save the credit memo.

   Note, too, that you can also print credit memos in a batch. Obviously, after you print credit memos, you need to distribute them.