Understanding Voids

This article is for anyone who needs to understand the Voids.

Voids are payments that have been removed from the payment. This removes that payment and that payment amount from a sale.

Common valid reasons for voids

• Customer says they are paying in cash or check, or another payment method, and then figures out they don't have enough.  If the clerk enters the payment before receiving it, they will need to void that payment to accept a different form of payment.  We recommend advising clerks to not enter a payment till after it has been received.

• Sometimes a cashier will hit the wrong button when making a payment and will then need to remove the accidental payment that was added. A common example is where a cashier hits the Cash button which does an exact cash payment when a higher value bill was actually given so the cashier then voided the exact cash payment so they can re-enter the actual payment amount and get the change amount needed.

To void a payment a few conditions have to be met.

• The invoice has to still be open.

• The employee has to have permission to be able to void payments.

• If a payment is tied to a gateway (external system like credit cards, Astro Loyalty, etc), then the void has to be approved by the external system.

  • If a credit card charge has already batched, it can not be voided.

  • Pin based debit payments tend to not be voidable.

  • Payments/rebates from Astro and similar external systems tend to not be voidable after a random period of time.  This can sometimes be almost immediate, and at other times, can still be voidable days later.

• Payments on Invoices that haven't been closed can in general be voided by the employee (see exception list above)

• If the payment is on a sale that was put on hold, the void can only occur at the register that the payment was made at.

How to void a payment :

Sale is rung up and cashier clicks Pay.

Open

Customer says they will pay by check so the check button is clicked. This adds the check payment to the Payments field. Client realises they have the business checkbook and not their personal checkbook so needs to switch payment method. The cashier has already clicked the check button so will need to click the grey X next to that payment to void out that payment.

Open

When clicking the X a warning will popup about voiding the payment and how this cannot be undone. The cashier will click Yes to void the payment.

After voiding out that payment the balance due returns to the full amount that was originally due. Any fees related to the voided payment method is also removed from the payment and from the Total Due (in the example this removes the check fee).

The cashier then adds in any other payment methods that the customer chooses to use to complete the sale. A receipt is generated that shows the payment used to complete the sale and the is no mention of the voided payment. Voided payments will not affect the final sale or payments. The sale total still has to be met for the sale to complete.

A record of the voided payment is kept in the system. All voided payments can be viewed in the Voided Payments (xls).

This can be accessed by :

1. Opening the Cash Register.

2. Clicking on the Reports button.

3. Selecting the Voided Payments (xls) report in the Report Categories list.

4. Selecting the location if there are multiple locations.

5. Setting the period. Choosing Custom will bring up calendar select drop-down menus.

6. Clicking Generate Report when location and period have been selected.

The xls report will be generated. There will be a Summary sheet and a Details sheet. In the example, I am using Libreoffice so it may look a little different from Excel (Microsoft Office) and Numbers (Mac). You may see a large number of Astro Offer Rebate voided payments. This is due to the rebate being a payment that are automatically applied but if the cashier clicks the Back to Sale button to either add or subtract items, the system has to remove the Astro Offer Rebates by voiding them. They are then added back onto the sale when the cashier has made the changes needed and hits the Pay button again.

The Summary sheet :

This sheet will display the location, employee, a summed number of voids, a summed total of the value of the voids, and what type of payment type the void was. All of these will be combined into 1 line per employee.

The Details Sheet will list the individual voids at the time they occurred. The amount and type is also listed. The Astros can be ignored but additional coaching my be needed for any employees who have large numbers of other payment type voids.