Despite the fact that a refund means money coming into the council, it should be viewed as the correction of an overpayment, not as a receipt.
Refunds should therefore be entered as negative payments, not as receipts. If entered as receipts, the total end of year receipts figure will be overstated, and if VAT is included in the credit the closing VAT balance will likely be calculated incorrectly.
When you receive a refund, enter it as a negative payment entry. This allows you to allocate it to the same code as the original invoice, placing a minus signs in front of the values to create a negative entry.
The negative payment entry will be reconciled like any other transaction. Once the refund appears on the bank statement, the negative payment in Scribe can be ticked off.
The negative payment will have the same affect as a receipt (e.g. increase the bank statement balance) but ensures that your income and expenditure is not overstated at year end.