# What credit notes are

What you issue when a repair is refunded, reworked or billed wrongly, and why this list is not filtered to repairs.

A credit note reverses a charge that should not stand. The customer was billed for work that had to be redone, a part came off the invoice, or the price was simply wrong. Rather than editing a document the customer already holds, you issue a second one that cancels part or all of the first.

**Video coming soon:** Credit notes, from raising one to clearing the balance

## Highlights

- **Unlike quotes and invoices, this list is not filtered to repairs.** Every credit note in the business is here.
- **A credit note starts life with a balance**, which is credit not yet used.
- **It can reduce another invoice, or be paid back** as a refund.
- **Raising one from the invoice** carries the lines across for you.
- **The balance is what to watch**: a credit note nobody applied is money sitting unused.

## The list

![The Credit Notes list under a tab reading Credit Notes, headed Credit Notes with the subtitle Manage credits, apply to invoices, and process refunds. Columns read Credit Note Date, Credit Note Number, Customer, Reference Number, Invoice Number, Balance Due, Salesperson and Total. Rows include CN-00019 for Bellhaven Steelworks at 512.00 pounds and CN-00007 for Severn Valley Plant Hire at 2,450.00 pounds. The Reference Number column holds codes such as IRONVALE-UK-CN-012 and IVCN-007 rather than repair ticket numbers, and every Invoice Number cell is empty. The foot reads showing 1 to 19 of 19 results.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/repairs/sales/credit-notes-list.png)

*Nineteen credit notes, none of them filtered out. The empty Invoice Number column means none has been applied yet.*

> **Note:**
>
> **This screen behaves differently from Quotes and Invoices**
>
> Those two lists are narrowed to documents a repair ticket produced. Credit notes are not narrowed at all, so a credit raised by your finance team for something with no connection to the workshop appears here beside your own. Read the customer and the reference before assuming a credit note is yours.

## What a credit note holds

![Credit note CN-00007 open, badged Open, with Apply to Invoice and Refund buttons in the header. A Quick Actions banner reads Perform the next step in this process with an Apply to Invoice button. Customer Details name Severn Valley Plant Hire. Credit Note Details list Credit Note Number CN-00007, Reference Number IVCN-007 and Credit Note Date 03/09/2026. A Line Items table holds one row, Annual Plant Maintenance Contract, quantity 1 at 2,450.00 pounds. Notes to Customer reads Goods returned. Sub Total, Total Amount and Balance all read 2,450.00 pounds. The left column lists other credit notes badged Open with their balances.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/repairs/sales/credit-note-detail.png)

*An open credit note with its full value still unused. The two header buttons are the only two things you can do with it.*

- **Balance**: Credit still available. It falls as you apply the note to invoices, and reaches zero when it is fully used or refunded.
- **Open**: Issued and carrying unused credit. This is where a credit note sits until somebody does something with it.
- **Apply to Invoice**: Sets the credit against what the customer owes, reducing a bill rather than moving money.
- **Refund**: Pays the credit back instead. The right answer when there is no outstanding invoice to set it against.

> **Tip:**
>
> **An unapplied credit note is money the customer is owed**
>
> A note sitting at Open with its full balance is credit nobody has used. Sort the list by balance now and again: an old credit note with an outstanding invoice from the same customer is a pairing that should have happened months ago.