Credits

A credit is money on a customer’s file. There are two kinds, and the difference is what can happen to them:

• Store credit — a general balance, spendable on any sale. Issued by hand (“goodwill gesture, refund for a cancellation”) or created by a refund to store credit.
• Deposit — money holding a specific piece of future work, usually created when a deposit sale completes and linked to its booking. Deposits carry things store credit doesn’t in practice: the accepted deposit policy, an artist the money is for, and the possibility of being forfeited as a cancellation fee.

Both live on the customer’s Credits tab, active balances up top and everything else under history, each with a full ledger. The studio-wide view is Admin → Credits — open to anyone who can view everyone’s credits — every outstanding balance, filterable by type, status, customer, and crucially by assigned to (whose work the deposit is for, including Unassigned) versus held by (whose bank account physically has the money).

Credits don’t expire on their own. An expiration date can be recorded, but no balance quietly ages out — a credit ends by being spent, voided, or forfeited.

Issuing store credit

Issue credit on the customer’s tab (Credits → Create): type, amount, optional expiration and notes. Front Desk can issue and view credits; voiding, forfeiting, and reversing are manager territory (Credits → Edit (Everyone)).

Applying at checkout

On a sale with a balance due, Customer Credit appears among the payment options whenever the customer actually has active credit — including customers whose sessions ride on someone else’s cart. You pick the specific credit, apply the pre-filled amount or a custom one, and the rest stays on file. Nothing auto-applies, and there’s no ordering rule — the person at the register chooses which money to spend.

Two deposit situations ask before applying:

• The deposit is held by a former team member — the money sits in the account of someone who left. Applying it means the studio honors money it doesn’t hold; the app makes sure that’s a decision, not an accident.
• The deposit is for a different artist than anyone on the sale. Honoring Johnny’s deposit on Ophelia’s work is sometimes right — but only on purpose.

One hard rule: a credit can never pay for a new deposit. Deposits are new money in.

Whose work a deposit is for

Every deposit can carry an artist — that’s who a forfeit pays. A deposit created from a booking takes the booking’s artist and follows it from then on; a standalone deposit is assigned directly with Assign artist on the credit, set at issue time, or left with the studio as Unassigned. Changing or removing an artist already assigned takes Compensation → Override on top of credit editing — attribution is money.

Three boundaries:

• A booking-linked deposit is assigned through its booking, not through the credit. The booking controls the deposit until its cancellation or no-show decision is complete. Once an Approved booking’s deposit is applied to the completed sale for that appointment’s exact session, any active remainder is released from the booking’s control. The booking link remains part of the deposit history.
• An artist-held deposit can’t be reassigned or unassigned at all — the holder stays responsible for the work.
• An unassigned deposit that forfeits stays entirely with the studio. When there is someone to pay, the forfeit itself offers to assign the artist in the same step.

When the deposit is bigger than the bill

A deposit that exceeds the amount due offers leave the remainder for the artist: the bill portion applies to the sale and the leftover resolves as forfeited-deposit income, both in one move — deliberately not a tip, because the money originated as a compelled deposit. It pays out at the artist’s forfeit rate unless you choose Pay in full (which takes Compensation → Override on top); on a deposit with no artist, you pick who receives the share right there, or the studio keeps it. If the customer should keep the remainder, apply only the bill portion and the rest stays spendable on their file.

You do not have to decide while applying the deposit. Once the matching appointment sale is complete, Forfeit remaining deposit is available on that sale while the remainder stays in Credits. The same remainder can be forfeited from the customer’s Credits tab or Admin → Credits. Earlier sales and sales for another session do not get the action. A new booking or open checkout takes control again until that workflow releases the remainder. A later forfeit does not change the completed sale or its recorded tip.

Forfeits and reversals

A forfeit keeps collected deposit money as a fee instead of leaving it available for the customer to spend. REV23 records it as forfeited-deposit income. No money is collected again, and no tip is added to a sale. Store credit cannot be forfeited because it may represent studio-issued credit rather than collected money. Void unused store credit instead.

The deposit’s current state determines where the decision belongs:

Current state	What to do
A standalone active deposit, or an active remainder after a cancellation or no-show deposit decision	Use Forfeit deposit from the customer’s Credits tab or Admin → Credits.
An Approved booking’s deposit applied to the completed sale for that appointment’s exact session	Use Forfeit deposit from Credits or Forfeit remaining deposit from that completed sale.
A current or future appointment without its matching completed sale; a cancellation or no-show awaiting a deposit decision; or a deposit applied on a sale for another session	Use Open booking to resolve.
A deposit currently applied to an open checkout	Use Open checkout to resolve. Finish or revise that sale before resolving the remainder.
Store credit, or a voided, expired, fully applied, fully forfeited, or empty deposit	There is no forfeit action.

Leave the amount blank to forfeit the full remaining balance, or enter a smaller amount to leave the rest spendable. Zero, negative, invalid, and over-balance amounts are rejected. The artist earns their forfeit share, previewed before you commit, and an optional reason is recorded on the deposit history.

Reverse forfeit is the undo: the outstanding forfeited amount comes back as spendable credit on the same record, and the artist’s share is clawed back — one atomic move, so nobody ends up paid twice. It’s available whenever any forfeited amount is outstanding, including after a partial forfeit on a still-active deposit. Cancellation flows on the booking side default to leaving deposits spendable; forfeiting is always somebody’s explicit call, and a customer cancelling on their own never triggers one automatically.

Artist-held deposits

When a deposit was physically handed to the artist — or paid online straight into their own payment account — the credit records them as its holder, and the money’s custody follows through everything: forfeits net to zero against their held balance, refunds funded by the studio post as money they owe back, and payroll settles it all.

An artist-held deposit can’t be voided (the studio can’t zero out money it doesn’t hold). The owner-level exit is Release to holder on Admin → Credits: the deposit leaves the studio’s books entirely and stays between the customer and that person. If another artist is honoring the deposit instead, don’t release it — apply it at checkout so it settles through payroll.

Voiding and deleting

Void makes a balance unredeemable, history preserved, no payroll movement. Delete permanently exists for records created in error and refuses once the credit is referenced by any sale or refund — real history voids, it doesn’t vanish.

The Balances report

Outstanding deposits (including artist-held), store credit, and gift cards, as of any date — the full stored-value liability in one place. It has its own page.