Refund payout methods & credit notes

When you process a refund, Vilo lets you choose how the money goes back to the guest. A refund and a credit note are two different things — see below.

Choosing the payout method

On both the Refunds queue (when you approve a guest request) and the Issue refund panel on a booking, you'll pick one of:

• Paystack (card) — refunded automatically to the card the guest paid with, via the provider.
• PayPal — refunded automatically through PayPal.
• EFT / bank transfer — you send the money yourself by bank transfer; Vilo marks it as paid and notifies the guest.
• Manual / other — cash or any other arrangement you settle outside the platform.

The method defaults to however the guest originally paid, which is usually what you want — a refund normally goes back the way it came. EFT and Manual are flagged as host-sent in the audit trail; Paystack and PayPal are provider transactions.

Refund vs credit note — they are not the same

Standard bookkeeping keeps these separate, and so does Vilo:

• Refund — actual cash goes back to the guest (money leaves your account). It appears on the ledger as a Refund.
• Credit note — a document that reduces an invoice and gives the guest store credit to spend later. No cash leaves your account. It appears on the ledger as a Credit note.

You choose one or the other for a given situation — a guest should not receive both a refund and a credit note for the same amount. (If you ever see both on one booking for the same value, treat it as a red flag and check it.)

Credit notes

You'll find them under Finances → Credit Notes. Open a booking's Payments tab and use Issue credit note (or Credit this on a payment) to credit an amount with your own reason (e.g. a goodwill gesture), without sending cash. Each credit note carries its own number ({handle}-CNYYYY-NNNN), a frozen snapshot of the host and guest details, and the credited line items. You can cancel a credit note if it was raised in error.

Good to know

• Provider (Paystack / PayPal) refund automation is finalised at launch; the chosen method is always recorded so the audit trail and the guest's notification are correct.
• A credit note never exceeds the invoice total.
• Credit notes appear on the related invoice page as well as in the Credit Notes list.