Looking for how to process a client refund?
If a client's booking has been cancelled and they've been refunded, follow these steps to update the trip so the invoice and commission tracking reflect the cancellation correctly.
When a booking is canceled and the client has been refunded, follow these steps to keep your payment records accurate and remove the booking from commission tracking.
Important: Canceling a booking hides it from your client and removes it from their invoice. If the canceled booking is the only priced item on the trip, you won't be able to generate an invoice. See Known limitation below.
Step 1 — Log payments in the payment schedule
In the Booking & Pricing tab, log each transaction in the payment schedule:
- Original client payment(s) as positive amounts
- Any refund as a negative amount
While the booking is active, these entries appear on the client's PDF invoice. Once you mark the booking Canceled (Step 3), the booking and its payments are left off the invoice. They stay in the Booking & Pricing tab for your records.
Step 2 — Update the item cost
The "Total Remaining" on the invoice is: Item Cost − Total Paid. Logging a refund as a negative payment reduces Total Paid, but the item cost on the activity stays unchanged. This creates an "Unpaid" balance equal to the original item cost.
To fix this:
- If the trip was fully refunded, set the activity's item cost to $0
- If a cancellation fee was kept, set the item cost to the fee amount (e.g., $150) and log only the net payment received
If the cancelled activity was inside a package:
Removing an activity from a package does not automatically reduce the package price. After removing the activity, go to the package in the Bookings tab, edit it, and reduce the package price by the refunded activity's portion. Then update the standalone activity's item cost to $0 and mark it as Canceled.
Why this step matters: Logging a refund as a negative payment reduces Total Paid but does not change the item cost. Without updating the item cost, the invoice will show an incorrect unpaid balance equal to the original price. Always update the item cost after logging the refund.
Setting the item cost to $0 removes the activity from the invoice's itemized pricing section entirely. The client will not see the original charge or refund history for that item on the invoice. There is currently no way to show a fully refunded activity on the invoice with both the complete payment history and a $0 balance — see Known Limitations below
Step 3 — Mark the booking as "Canceled"
Change the booking status to "Canceled" in the Booking Details section. Canceling also hides the activity from your client automatically. It's removed from their itinerary, their pricing total, and the invoice. If the trip has other priced items, you can still generate an invoice for those. If this was the only priced item on the trip, the Generate invoice button will be unavailable. This automatically removes the booking from the Expected Commission total in the Overview panel. No other steps are required to clear it from commission tracking — marking it as non-commissionable is not necessary. Note: if you only marked the trip as "Cancelled" in your dashboard without changing the individual booking's status, the booking may still show as Overdue. In that case, either change the booking status to Canceled, or mark the booking as not commissionable from the Commission section's ⋯ menu..
Step 4 — Track cancelled sales in Reports
Go to Reports → "Your Sales and Expected Commission." Change the Booking Status filter from "Booked" to "Canceled" to view cancelled bookings and their original amounts for historical reference.
Known limitation: Tern can't currently create an invoice that shows a canceled booking with its payment and refund history and a $0 balance. Canceled bookings are hidden from your client and left off the invoice, whatever the item cost. If the canceled booking was the only priced item on the trip, you can't generate an invoice for that trip.
For Project Expedition bookings: If you see "Edit Payment" instead of "Log Payment," the payment was created by the PE sync. Click "Edit Payment" to modify the existing payment entry. To log a refund, edit the payment amount to reflect the net (original minus refund), or contact support if you need to add a separate refund line.