Balances and refunds do not add up
Updated September 14, 2026
Most apparent discrepancies come from three deliberate behaviours. Store Credit › Activity, with its Balance After column, is the place to reconstruct what actually happened to a customer’s balance.
A balance never goes negative
Deducting more than a customer holds takes the balance to zero rather than below it, and the activity log records the real change rather than the figure you asked for. Remove 50 from a customer with 30 and you will see a -30 entry, not -50.
Clawback debt
When credit has to be taken back – a refunded top-up, a reversed gift card, a clawed-back cashback award – the customer may have already spent it. The plugin deducts what it can and records the remainder as an outstanding debt against the account, then nets it off the next credit they receive. An order note records any shortfall so it is visible rather than silently absorbed.
This is why a customer can receive 20 of credit and see their balance rise by less: an earlier debt was settled first. The activity log shows both entries.
Credit held by an unpaid order
Credit applied at checkout is taken when the order is placed, so an order left unpaid holds it hostage. If that order is still awaiting payment after a grace period – 7 days by default – it is cancelled automatically, which is what returns the credit and restores any voucher drawn down. The order note explains why.
Until then the customer’s spendable balance is lower than they expect. Cancelling the stale order by hand returns the credit immediately.
Reporting totals differ from the raw log
Credit Issued and Credit Redeemed on the reports page exclude transfers. Gifting moves credit between two customers, and converting a voucher to a balance (or the reverse) changes its form, so counting either as an issuance would double-count the same money. Both still appear in the activity log, which is why the two screens can legitimately disagree.
Partial refunds
A partial refund claws back a proportional share of any cashback the order earned, rather than the whole award. The figures will therefore not be round numbers.