With the new "Refund" button, I am unable to refund money on a patron's account to the original method of payment. That is something we have done frequently in the past. Is there still a way to manage this? We have always done this manually and carefully, and now it seems like refunds can only be done if they are tied directly to the original purchase. Please tell me this isn't the case!
Lindsay
The refund button on the payments screen is for the "Refund Prior Payments" feature, which does a specific type of refund with a payment card processor called "refund by reference". This basically lets you reverse a part or whole of a previous credit card payment, which is why it can only be done on the original order where the original payment took place.
For other payment methods like on-account, or to do a direct credit to a payment card when the original payment is not available, you don't use the refund button at all, and instead just enter a negative payment amount and choose the desired payment method to refund to the sam way you would charge that payment method.
If you are in a situation where an exchange has been made in a new order, and you want to refund by reference (which is always preferable to a direct credit in the case of a credit card refund), you can still do this by using on-account to transfer the refund money back into the original order, where the Refund Prior Payments button can be used.
Just remember that there are occasionally limitations: if you are using WorldPay as your payment processor, for example, the refund by reference function is only available within a 90-day (formerly 45-day) window. Also, the availability of refunds for a payment method are subject to Tessitura Security controls, and payment method configuration in Campaigns/Payment Methods.