Store credit balance
A restaurant's store credit with a supplier is one number: what that supplier currently owes it in credit. There is one balance per restaurant per supplier. The same restaurant can hold credit with several suppliers, and none of it can be spent across suppliers.
Who uses it
- Supplier staff read it on the customer page and next to every store-credit field before they spend it.
- Restaurants don't see it. No restaurant screen, email or PDF shows the balance; they see only the credit applied to a given invoice.
How it works
Where the balance shows
| Screen | Wording |
|---|---|
| Customer page, Store Credits box (under Loyalty Tier) | "Available Store Credit Balance:" then the amount in large type, e.g. $80.00. $0.00 when the customer never had credit |
| New Order dialog and the order's Promotions & Fees, once Apply Store Credits is ticked | "$80.00 available". When the order already holds credit: "$20.00 available (+$60.00 already on this order)" |
| Invoice → Manage Payments → Edit Payment, method Store Credit | "Available Store Credit Balance: $80.00", under "Balance Due: …" |
The customer page reads the balance fresh each time it opens. After you issue credit there, the box refreshes on its own. The Add Payment form on an invoice doesn't show the balance (it shows "Balance Due" and "Store Credits Applied"); the server checks the amount against it.
What the balance is made of
There is no list of separate credits. Every movement simply adds to or takes from one number:
| Event | Balance |
|---|---|
| Supplier issues $50.00 by hand | +50.00 |
| Refund of $30.00 paid as store credit | +30.00 |
| $20.00 overpayment kept as credit | +20.00 |
| $60.00 applied to a new order | −60.00 |
| Order with $60.00 applied is cancelled | +60.00 |
| $40.00 store-credit payment recorded on an invoice | −40.00 |
| Balance | 60.00 |
The records behind these movements are in the customer's Payment History, but the balance is not recalculated from them. If you add up the Credit Issued rows and subtract the store-credit Payment rows you will usually, but not always, land on the balance. See Known limitations.
Calculations
Rounding
The balance is always stored to the cent. Each movement is rounded to the cent, half up, before it's applied.
| Movement asked for | Moves | Why |
|---|---|---|
| $10.004 | $10.00 | Rounds down |
| $10.005 | $10.01 | Half rounds up |
| $0.004 | refused | Rounds to $0.00: "Issued credit amount must be a positive number" / "Redemption amount must be positive" |
The app's amount fields only accept two decimals, so the rows above can only be reached through the API. Older balances that carried a sub-cent remainder (for example $7,799.700000000001) are cleaned up the next time they move, and the full displayed amount can always be spent.
It never goes below $0.00
Spending credit is a single check-and-take: if the balance doesn't cover the amount, nothing is taken and the action fails. Two people spending the same credit at the same moment can't both succeed.
| Balance | Try to spend | Result |
|---|---|---|
| $80.00 | $80.00 | Allowed. Balance $0.00 (shown as "$0.00", never "−$0.00") |
| $80.00 | $80.01 | Refused. Balance stays $80.00 |
| $0.00 (never had credit) | $5.00 | Refused. The customer has no balance yet |
What the supplier reads when it's refused depends on the screen. See Pay with store credit and Correct or remove.
Store credit is the supplier's debt to the customer. Nothing in Clipp expires it, caps it, or reduces it over time. It changes only when someone acts.
Edge cases
- Inactive customer: the balance stays. Issue Store Credit is still offered on the page.
- Customer still at the invitation stage: the customer page shows the box and the button. The balance is $0.00 until credit is issued.
- Restaurant ordering from several suppliers: each supplier sees only its own balance. Credit from supplier A can't pay supplier B's invoice.
Where it shows up
Customer page · New Order dialog · Promotions & Fees panel · Manage Payments (Edit Payment). Never on restaurant screens, PDFs or emails.
Permissions
Anyone who can open the customer page sees the balance. Changing it needs the permissions on each action's page.
Decisions
- Store the balance to the cent, rounding in the same write. A tiny float remainder once made store-credit writes stall for about a minute, so cancellations failed on retry. (#2368)
- Show the real balance and the credit already on the order separately. The old single figure mixed the two. (#2499)
Known limitations
- No history inside the balance. The balance can't say which credit was spent first. That is why removing a refund can only be checked against what's left (see the already-spent rule).
- Records and balance can disagree where credit moved without its own record: credit applied while building an order shows only as the order's Store Credits line and a Payment row in Payment History, not in the invoice's Records.
- Restaurants can't see their balance in any app.
FAQ
The customer says they have more credit than the page shows. Who's right? The page. It shows the live balance. Open View Payment History to see each movement; credit applied while building orders appears as a Payment row, not in the invoice's Records (see Known limitations).
Does store credit expire? No. See It never goes below $0.00.
Can a customer use credit from one supplier with another? No. Each supplier has its own balance for that customer.