Refunds and category credits

Money coming back is not income. Recording it right keeps your spending numbers meaning what they say.

Why not just record income?

A returned jumper is not a payday. Record the refund as plain income and two numbers go wrong at once: your income looks higher than it is, and your clothing spending stays higher than it really was. Endute's refund tools push the money back against the spending instead, so both sides of the story stay true.

Marking a refund

On an incoming transaction, tick This is a refund and choose between two modes with the Refund type: toggle. The same choice is offered during review for imported rows.

Aspect	Refund a specific purchase	No specific purchase - credit a category
You pick	The original transaction, via Select Original Transaction.	An expense category to credit.
Amount limit	Capped at what remains refundable on the original; the dialog shows Max refundable.	No cap.
Effect on spending	Nets against the original purchase's category.	Nets against the category you chose, in the period the credit lands.
Best for	A return or partial refund of one identifiable purchase.	Cashback, reimbursements, or refunds whose original is long gone or spread over many rows.

Choosing between them

The linked refund is the precise tool: it remembers which purchase came back, caps the amount so a refund can never exceed its original, and keeps the pair inspectable later. Reach for it whenever you can point at the purchase. The category credit is the pragmatic one: when a colleague repays their share of dinner or a cashback lands monthly, there is no single original to link, and crediting the category says exactly what you mean with none of the ceremony.

Both reduce spending, not increase income

In budgets and spending reports, either kind of refund lowers the actuals of the affected category rather than padding your income. If rollover budgeting is on, that netting flows into the carried balances too, so a refunded overspend genuinely un-spends itself.

What next

For receipts with a refund inside a larger purchase, splits handle the mixed-direction case. And if a refund arrived through your bank feed, mark it during review rather than adding it by hand, so the imported row itself carries the link.