Client Account Credit

15 minutes

Introduction

Sometimes a client pays you before you've done the work. They might round up a cash payment and ask you to "keep the change on my account", prepay towards their next few visits, or be owed money after a booking mix-up. Luminate handles all of these with account credit — a stored balance on the client's record that can be spent at the till like any other payment method.

This tutorial shows you how to add credit to a client's account, spend it at checkout, keep cash change on account, review a client's credit history, and make manual balance adjustments.

Who this is for: Owner, Admin, Manager, Receptionist, Staff (till operations); Owner, Admin, Manager (manual adjustments) What you'll learn:

What account credit is and when to use it instead of a gift voucher
Sell an account credit top-up at the till
Keep a client's cash change on their account
Pay for a sale (fully or partially) with account credit
View a client's balance and movement history on their profile
Make a manual adjustment (add or deduct credit) with an audit reason
What happens to credit when a sale is refunded or clients are merged

Time to complete: 15 minutes

Prerequisites

Logged in with permission to process transactions
Complete Tutorial 2.1 (Processing a Sale with QuickPOS)
A customer record to work with (Tutorial 3.1)

Account Credit vs Gift Vouchers

Both store value, but they behave differently:

	Account Credit	Gift Voucher
Belongs to	A specific client record	Whoever holds the voucher code
Code needed at checkout	No — just select the client	Yes
Expires	Never	Per your voucher settings
Typical use	Prepayments, change kept on account, goodwill corrections	Gifts for someone else

If a client is buying value for themselves, account credit is usually the better fit. If they're buying for someone else, sell a gift voucher.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Selling an Account Credit Top-Up

A top-up is sold through QuickPOS like any other item and paid with normal tenders (cash, card, and so on).

Open QuickPOS from the sidebar (or press t)
Select the client first — credit always belongs to a specific client, so the top-up card stays disabled until a customer is selected
Open the Misc tab
Under Account Credit, tap the Account Credit Top-up card
Enter the amount (or use a quick amount button) and tap Add to Cart
Take payment as normal (cash, card, or split)

The credit is added to the client's balance when the sale is fully paid. Top-ups are not taxable and don't earn staff commission.

Note: Top-up lines can't be added when editing an existing transaction — they can only be sold on a new sale.

Keeping Change on Account

When a client pays cash and is owed change, you can bank the change instead of handing it back:

At checkout, tap Cash and enter the amount tendered
When the tendered amount exceeds the amount due, the Change Due box appears
Tick "Keep change on [client]'s account" (only shown when a client is selected)
Tap Complete Payment

Example: the bill is £42 and the client hands over £50 with the box ticked. The till records the full £50 cash (so your drawer count is right), and £8 lands on the client's account as credit.

Paying with Account Credit

In QuickPOS, select the client — the Credit payment button becomes available when they hold a balance
Tap Credit (next to Voucher and Other)
The payment dialog shows the client's available credit and pre-fills the maximum that can be applied (never more than the amount due, never more than their balance)
Adjust the amount for a partial application if you like, then tap Complete Payment
Split payments work as normal — for example, apply £15 credit and take the rest by card

The spend is deducted from the client's balance immediately and recorded on their credit ledger against the transaction.

Viewing a Client's Credit

Open the client's profile (Customers → select the client):

The Account Credit summary card at the top shows the current balance
The Credit tab shows the full movement history: date, type (top-up, spent at till, manual adjustment, merge transfer), signed amount, running balance, the linked transaction, who recorded it, and any notes

Every movement is auditable — nothing is ever deleted from this history. Corrections and refunds appear as offsetting reversal entries.

Manual Adjustments (Owner, Admin, Manager)

Use a manual adjustment for goodwill credit, corrections, or resolving a blocked refund (see below).

On the client's profile, open the Credit tab
Click Adjust Credit (only visible if you have the manage account credit permission)
Choose Add credit or Deduct credit
Enter the amount — deductions can't exceed the current balance
Enter a reason (required — it's stored on the ledger with your name)
Click Apply adjustment

The dialog shows the resulting balance before you confirm.

Refunds and Account Credit

Two situations to understand:

Refunding a sale that was paid with credit: the credit-paid portion goes back onto the client's balance — it is never handed out as cash or card money. Any cash/card portion of the sale refunds as money exactly as it does today. The refund dialog spells out the split before you confirm.

Refunding a sale that included a top-up: the credit that was granted is removed from the client's balance. If the client has already spent some of that credit, the refund is blocked with a clear message — deduct the missing amount with a manual adjustment first (or settle it with the client), then retry the refund.

Credit and Client Merges

When you merge duplicate client records (Tutorial 3.6), any credit on the merged record transfers automatically to the surviving record, and the full credit history moves across with it.

Reporting

The Account Credit report (Reports → Account Credit) shows every client holding credit, the total outstanding liability (money you owe clients in services), and how much credit was added and spent over a period. It's available to Owners, Admins, Managers, and Receptionists, and exports to CSV/PDF.

Troubleshooting

The Credit payment button is greyed out Select a customer first. If it's still disabled, the client has no available credit (or their balance is already fully applied to this sale), or the sale contains an account credit top-up — credit can't be used to buy more credit.

The "Keep change on account" checkbox isn't showing It only appears when a customer is selected on the sale, the tendered cash exceeds the amount due, you're creating a new sale (not editing one), and no discount is applied to the sale.

The Account Credit Top-up card is greyed out Top-ups need a customer selected and can't be added to a sale that has a discount applied or is being paid with account credit. Ring the top-up as a separate sale instead. Top-ups can be any amount from 0.01 up to 99,999.99.

"Cannot refund this transaction..." when refunding a top-up The client has already spent some of the credit that sale created. Use Adjust Credit → Deduct to remove the shortfall (with a note explaining why), then process the refund.

I can't see the Adjust Credit button Manual adjustments need the manage account credit permission (Owner, Admin, and Manager by default). Receptionists and staff can still sell top-ups and take credit payments at the till.