Sometimes a plan payment needs giving back. You took a month off someone who had already cancelled, you agreed to knock a month off after a bad job, or the same month went out twice. If Mucka collected it, Mucka can refund it.
Doing it
Open the customer's plan on the Clients tab of Service Plans and scroll to Payments. Every month since they joined is listed. Next to a month that has been paid you will see an undo arrow — tap it.
The box that opens is pre-filled with everything left on that payment, because a full refund is what almost every refund is. Change the amount if you are only giving part of it back, then tap Refund.
This one is not reversible. Every other button on that sheet can be undone or was only ever wrong on paper. This moves real money out of your bank account and towards the customer, and GoCardless cannot un-refund it. Read the amount before you tap.
The refund shows on the month straight away — £18.00 refunded alongside the month's own state. You can refund the same payment more than once in parts, and Mucka keeps track of how much is left.
The month still says paid, and that is deliberate
A refunded month does not flip back to unpaid. It was paid — the money came in, and you chose to send it back. If Mucka marked it unpaid it would land in your arrears list and start chasing a customer you had just refunded, which is the last thing anybody wants.
Why the arrow is sometimes missing
- The payment has not cleared yet. A Direct Debit sits in the banking system for about four working days and can still fail in that time. Refunding one that then bounces leaves you out twice. Wait for it to show as paid.
- You recorded the payment by hand. A standing order or a bank transfer never went through Mucka, so there is nothing here to reverse. Pay them back however you took it.
- It has already been refunded in full. Nothing left to give.
- Refunds are switched off on your GoCardless account. See below.
Turning refunds on
GoCardless keeps refunds switched off on new accounts as standard — it is not something Mucka controls. If Settings → Money → Getting paid says refunds are switched off, ask GoCardless to turn them on for your account. It appears in Mucka on its own once they have.
The seven-day wait
GoCardless will not let a payment be refunded within seven days of it being taken. This is their rule and it is a sensible one: it stops you refunding a payment that is about to fail, which would leave you down twice over. If you try inside that window you will get told, and you just try again once the week is up.
If it genuinely cannot wait — a customer in real difficulty, say — ring GoCardless. They can lift the seven-day hold on your account.
Refunding is not cancelling
Giving a month back does not stop the plan. Their cover carries on, next month still comes out, and their Direct Debit is untouched. If they are leaving, cancel the plan as well — that is the Cancel plan button on the same sheet.