Despite the fact that a customer refund means money going out from the council, it should be viewed as a return of funds, not as a payment.
Customer refunds should therefore be entered as negative receipts, not as payments. If entered as payments, the total end of year payments figure will be overstated.
When you issue a customer refund, enter it as a negative receipt 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 receipt entry will be reconciled like any other transaction. Once the customer refund appears on the bank statement, the negative receipt in Scribe can be ticked off.
The negative receipt will have the same affect as a payment (e.g. decrease the bank statement balance) but ensures that your income and expenditure is not overstated at year end.