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I'm trying to figure this out with Intuit's somewhat lacking documentation.

Here is what I have:

  1. Customer purchases something (I create an Invoice) [Adds an amount to AR]
  2. We charge their credit card through an outside process (Not Intuit) (I create a Payment) [Moves the amount from AR to the merchant account]
  3. Customer returns all or part of the thing (I create a credit memo) [removes an amount from AR]

The credit memo creates a credit for the invoice but does not (cannot) reverse the charge in the merchant account. How do I process a return when I am not using Intuit's credit card processing service?

Thanks!

Keith Palmer Jr.
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An Old Guy and His Dog
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  • Are you asking about the actual return process *in QuickBooks* (in which case you should probably ask your accountant) or the return process *via your merchant account* (in which case you should probably ask your merchant provider)? – Keith Palmer Jr. Aug 15 '13 at 12:57
  • I am asking about the API call sequence to use – An Old Guy and His Dog Aug 15 '13 at 14:16
  • Which API call sequence? The merchant account API, or the QuickBooks API? What you've described sounds just fine. If that's not resulting in what you want within QuickBooks, you should probably find out what your accountant wants within QuickBooks. – Keith Palmer Jr. Aug 15 '13 at 14:31
  • The Quickbooks API (QBFC). And the sequence is not fine. I'm missing a step. And any API call I've tried including ARRefundCreditCardAdd produces errors. – An Old Guy and His Dog Aug 15 '13 at 16:24
  • OK, specifically which step are you missing? (hint: ask your accountant - this is a *programming* forum, not an accounting forum - your question is an *accounting* question, not a programming question) – Keith Palmer Jr. Aug 15 '13 at 16:47
  • OK... let me more specific... I already know the accounting answer... I am looking for someone who has navigated the QBFC before and solved this particular problem. The various refund API calls require specific transaction IDs and, although I have the transaction IDs from the invoice, payment, and credit mamo, I can an error when I use any of them. Still an accounting question? – An Old Guy and His Dog Aug 15 '13 at 17:35
  • OK, now we're getting somewhere. Specifically what error message do you get? Specifically what does your code look like? – Keith Palmer Jr. Aug 15 '13 at 17:42
  • I am using ARCreditCardRefund which requires a transactionId. But it is not clear whether they want the CreditMemo transactionID (txid), Payment txid, or original invoice txid. No matter what I try I get this error: Object "1E5A4-1376602310" specified in the request cannot be found. – An Old Guy and His Dog Aug 15 '13 at 21:39
  • See my answer below. If you continue to have problems, you should post the XML from a CreditMemoQuery request showing your CreditMemo data, along with the XML you're sending for your ARCreditCardRefundRq, so that people can help you troubleshoot. Without specific XML or error messages, no one will be able to help you. – Keith Palmer Jr. Aug 15 '13 at 22:02

1 Answers1

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When using the ARCreditCardRefund request with the SDK, you must provide one or more Credit Memo TxnID values to link your refund to.

From the QuickBooks SDK documentation (starts on page 317, has several pages devoted to this topic): 

You link this refund to the target credit memo using the RefundAppliedToTxnAdd aggregate.
You must link to at least one of these transactions; you can link to as many as you want.
The TxnID is unique among these transactions, so you don’t (in fact you can’t) specify a
transaction type.

The XML looks something like this:

<RefundAppliedToTxnAdd> <!-- required, may repeat -->
  <TxnID>IDTYPE</TxnID> <!-- required -->
  <RefundAmount>AMTTYPE</RefundAmount> <!-- required -->
</RefundAppliedToTxnAdd>

It's also worth quoting this part of the docs:

The ARAcountRef is also optional. If you omit it, the default Accounts Receivable account is used. Make sure this account matches the ARAccountRef in the credit memo transactions you are linking to.

To expand a bit more on that - if you don't specify the A/R account and the default is not the one your credit memo belongs to, or if you specify an A/R account that's different from the one your credit memo belongs to, you will get an error back indicating that the transaction could not be found. That could very well be what you're running into.

Keith Palmer Jr.
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