Refund trust or operating retainer transactions and paid invoices

Learn how to record a refund on trust and operating retainer transactions or invoices in Smokeball.

Refunding a trust/operating retainer transaction

In this situation, the best practice is to create a trust payment to refund your client:

1. Navigate to the Transactions tab within a matter and select your trust account or operating retainer account. 
2. Select the Trust Payment button or Operating Payment button. 

1. Fill out the amount in the Trust Payment window and select your client in the Paid To window. 
   • You can search for existing contacts or clients by typing out their name. Use the + icon if you need to add a new person or organization for the refund.
   • You can also add a reference or an internal note.
   • Trust Payment refunds can be issued as a bank transfer or check depending on your selection in the Type dropdown menu. However, you cannot issue a check from the operating retainer.
2. When you have finished entering all of the necessary information, select the Process button. 

Refunds from a paid invoice

You cannot directly issue a refund from a paid invoice. However, there are workarounds. 

One option is to delete or reverse the payment from an invoice. While on the matter's transactions tab, select Invoice Ledger from the leftmost column for a list of transactions. You then should follow steps described above for refunding a trust or operating retainer transaction to complete the refund.

Another option is to apply a credit memo to the next invoice you draft for the client. 

If the payment was made by credit card, there is no way to refund that money through Smokeball. The refund can only be processed through the credit card provider (LawPay or Smokeball Payments). 

Important Note: These approaches may not apply to you depending on whether the refund is the client’s last invoice, whether the refund will be paid through a credit card, cash, or check, whether the refund money is to go into trust, and many other factors. 

For this reason, we strongly recommend scheduling a Q&A with a billing trainer for additional assistance if you need to issue refunds from paid invoices.