Reversing a payment

Undoing a mis-recorded collection: what gets reverted, what stays in the history and why it is not a delete.

You recorded a collection that was not right: wrong amount, wrong loan. Reversing undoes it: it returns the loan and the cash drawer to their exact state before the payment.

You do it from the loan's payment history: find the payment, open it and confirm the reversal.

Reversing requires an open cash drawer, just like collecting, even to reverse a partial payment that never touched the drawer. If it is closed: "There is no open cash session".

It is not a delete

This is the key thing to understand:

Reversing DELETES nothing. The payment is flagged as reversed (it stops counting), but the row does not disappear: it stays there with who collected it, who reversed it and when.

The drawer is the same: the cash ledger is append-only. The reversal adds an outgoing movement for the payment amount. The balance returns to where it was, but the trail shows both: the collection in and the reversal out.

Accounting works the same way: the original journal entry is not touched; a reversing entry is posted that cancels it. Your books never "lose" history: that is the difference between an auditable system and a spreadsheet.

What exactly is reverted

When reversing a completed payment:

	Effect of the reversal
Loan	Rolls back the installment, accrued arrears, total paid, profit and the next payment date
Cash drawer	The payment total is debited (principal + interest + arrears)
Accounting	Reversing entry for the collection
Settled status	If the payment had settled the loan, it becomes active again
History	The payment stays on record as reversed, with its author

If you reverse a partial payment (one that had not completed the installment), there is nothing to give back in loan or drawer: that partial never touched them. Only the partial is voided.

The case that can fail: not enough cash

If the drawer does not hold enough to give the payment back, the reversal is rejected with "The drawer does not have enough balance to reverse this payment (it would go negative)".

This happens when the cash collected has already left the drawer (a disbursement, a withdrawal). It is not a system error: it is the drawer telling you the money is gone. Record the missing inflow first, or reverse once the drawer has funds.

Reversing a single partial, not the whole payment

If an installment was collected across several partials and only one is wrong, you do not need to tear down the whole payment: you can reverse that partial from the history.

The payment must have at least 2 partials. With only one, reverse the whole payment ("The payment must have at least 2 partials to delete one").
The payment is recomposed: total and arrears are recomputed from the surviving partials, and the payment goes back to in progress (not completed).
If that installment was already completed, everything (loan and drawer) is reverted first, and then the payment stays open with the remainder.

After reversing

The loan is back as it was: you can collect the installment again, with the right amounts. If the reversed payment was the one that had settled the loan, the loan becomes active again and consumes a plan slot once more.

Who can reverse

Whoever can collect, can reverse: the same record-payments permission is used, there is no separate one. And a collector can only reverse payments on his assigned loans.

Since everything is recorded with name and date, reversals are auditable: if a collector reverses collections suspiciously, it shows up in the trail.