Feature catalogue

Refunding unidentified money to bank

Sometimes the right answer to money you cannot place is to send it back out.

A refund takes the amount out of suspense and raises an outbound payment. It is one of the four ways money leaves a suspense case, alongside placing it on a customer’s account, moving it to another purpose, and writing it off.

Where the money goes

To your own organisation’s nominated bank account for outbound payments — not to the payer.

That surprises people, so it is worth being plain about why. The whole premise of this exit is that nobody could work out who sent the money. There is no payer on file to pay. What the refund does is move the amount back out through the bank account your organisation nominates for outgoing payments, where your treasury team handles it like any other outbound item.

If you do know who sent it, you are not refunding. Place the money on their account instead.

Refunding an item

  1. Open the case from the suspense worklist.
  2. Select Refund to bank.
  3. Enter the amount. You can refund part of an item and keep working the rest.
  4. Choose a reason.
  5. Confirm.

The amount clears from the suspense balance, and an outbound payment is raised for it straight away.

When a refund is refused

Your organisation must have nominated an outbound bank account for that currency. If nothing is nominated, the refund is refused and the money stays exactly where it was.

This refusal is deliberate and it protects you. A payment with no destination is not raised at all — so without the check, the item would clear out of suspense while no money ever moved. You would have a resolved case, a reduced balance, and nothing on any bank statement to match it against. The money would be gone from your books and sitting in the bank.

The other refusals are the ordinary ones:

Situation What happens
No outbound bank account nominated for the currency Refused. The money stays in suspense.
More than the item still holds Refused.
The item has already been placed or refunded in full Refused — there is nothing left.
A reason your organisation has not configured Refused.

After the refund

The case resolves once the whole amount has gone. A part refund leaves the case open for the rest, so a receipt you send half back and place half of stays on your worklist until both halves are done.

The outbound payment then follows your organisation’s normal payment run. The case records what was refunded, when, and why.

What your organisation configures