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Store Credit

A balance a customer can spend with you instead of paying in full. It is held per currency rather than as one figure, so one customer can carry two balances at once, it can be taken back as easily as it is given, and the Enable store credit toggle in Settings is a different thing from the balance on a record.

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Store credit is a balance held against a customer that they can spend with you instead of paying in full. You put it there, and it stays on their record until it is spent or taken back.

It is the thing to reach for when you owe a customer something and both of you would rather it stayed in the store: a goodwill gesture after a problem, a refund the customer agrees to keep as credit, a deposit against a future order. Issue Store Credit walks the dialog that puts it there.

Two places carry this name, and only one of them gives credit

This catches people out, so it comes before anything else.

Where What it is What you can do there
A customer's record, the Store credit card One person's balance Give credit, or take it back. This is the one the rest of this article is about
Settings > Customer accounts, the Store credit row A single store-wide toggle, Enable store credit Turn something on or off for the whole store. No amount is entered here and no customer is named

If you have opened Settings and found only a switch, you are in the wrong place for issuing credit. Go to Customers, open the person, and work from their record.

Store credit is also not a gift card. Gift cards are a separate feature with their own settings, and nothing in this article applies to them.

Before you begin

  • Your role includes Manage store credit, which is the permission this sits behind.
  • You know which currency you are working in, since a balance exists per currency.
  • Go to Customers and open the customer whose balance you are changing, not Settings.

Where the balance lives

A customer's page in the admin, with the breadcrumb reading Customers then the customer's name at the top left. The page is scrolled down the record, and (1) the card holding Store credit lists two balances, $677.00 and CA$787.00, then continues below a divider into the Tags section. A small control sits at the card's top right (opens full size)

The route is Customers, then the customer's name, then down their record. The breadcrumb at the top left of the picture is that path.

The card (1) is easy to walk past. It is in the main column, below Draft orders, and it does not have a card to itself: Store credit and Tags share one, with the balances above the divider and the tag selector below it. The only control is a small pencil at the top right, labelled Adjust for a screen reader and carrying no visible words.

Where What you see
The customer's record A Store credit heading sharing a card with Tags, listing a balance for each currency, or nothing
More actions on the same record Issue store credit, which opens the same dialog as the pencil
The customer's timeline An entry carrying the amount, such as You added $1 store credit
Settings > Customer accounts An Enable store credit toggle, described there as giving customers credit to use on your store

The timeline entry matters more than it looks. It is the only place the history of a balance is written down, and it carries the figure, so credit given can be traced without leaving the customer's page.

A balance per currency, not one balance

Store credit is not a single number. The dialog asks which currency each adjustment is in, so a customer can end up holding one amount in US dollars and another in Canadian dollars at the same time, listed one under the other on the card. The customer in the picture holds exactly that.

Each is spendable only in its own currency. So read which currency the balance you are looking at is in before you promise the customer anything, and choose that same currency when you add to it. Picking a different one does not warn you. It creates a second balance.

The setting and the balance are not the same thing

Settings > Customer accounts carries an Enable store credit toggle, and it is easy to read as the master switch. On the store this article was checked against it is off, while customers hold balances and while the admin can still issue and adjust them.

So the toggle is not proof of anything about the admin side. What it governs was not established here, and this article does not claim it. If you need to know whether customers can spend their credit, look at your own storefront rather than at the switch.

What it means for your store

Credit is a promise, not a payment. Issuing it does not move money. It records that you owe the customer value they can take in goods, so the cash stays with you until they spend it and the obligation sits on the record until they do.

It can be taken back. The same dialog debits as well as credits, so a balance given in error is corrected rather than written off.

Nobody tells the customer. The dialog's own notice says customer notification emails are not available yet, so a credit sits there silently. If you want it used, say so yourself, and say which currency it is in.

If something goes wrong

  • The balance did not move. Check the currency. A new balance may have been created beside the old one instead of changing it.
  • You issued too much. Open the same dialog and use Debit for the difference.
  • There is no control on the card. Your role may lack Manage store credit.
  • You only found a switch. That is Settings > Customer accounts. Balances are on the customer's own record.

Next steps

Still stuck?

More in Customers

  • Customer Segments

    A segment is a saved question about your customers rather than a saved list, so its members change as they do. Tanqory gives you two ways to write that question, a query builder and a form of Field, Operator and Value filters, and this article covers both, plus the panel that starts closed, the AI Refine field and what to do when it answers with nothing, the forty-nine fields you can filter on, and everything the row menu lets you do to a segment afterwards.

  • Adding a Customer

    Creating a customer record by hand, from the Add Customer button to the saved record. Three fields are required and everything else can wait, the three marketing consents start unticked and are a record of what the customer agreed to rather than a way to opt them in, and the Save bar is on the form from the moment it opens.

  • Search the Customer List

    Finding one customer and finding a group are different jobs with different tools. The search box matches name, email and phone and nothing else, it searches inside the tab you are standing on rather than the whole store, and the thing people most often type into it, a tag, comes back as No customers found rather than as an error.

  • Customer Tags

    A tag gives a group of customers a name so it is already assembled when you need it. This article covers where tags are set, one record at a time or in bulk from the list, what a tag is actually good for once it exists, and the one thing it will not do, which is answer the search box.

All 49 articles in Customers

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