NirmaanOne Help
TroubleshootingReviewed 2026-09-29

Cancel booking: the refund, forfeiture, charges or clawback are refused

The cancellation wizard refunds at most the customer's credit balance after the forfeiture and charges, lets you forfeit or charge only when something was billed or received, needs the refund's mode, date and paying account, and cannot claw back a commission that has already been paid; charges beyond what was received stay as a receivable bill on the customer ledger.

Messages this explains

  • “Nothing was billed or received on this booking: cancelling releases the unit (an allottee's comes off their offer, back to its previous status) and parking and marks the opportunity lost, with no accounting entries, forfeiture or refund.”
  • “Nothing was billed or received on this booking, so there is nothing to forfeit, charge or refund: these fields stay at zero and the booking is simply cancelled. Continue to the next step.”
  • “Nothing was billed or received, so there is nothing to charge against”
  • “No cancellation rule is in force; enter the forfeiture directly.”
  • “The charges exceed what was received by <x>; that stays open as a receivable bill on the customer ledger.”
  • “At most <x>.”
  • “The refund <x> exceeds the customer's credit balance after charges (<y>)”
  • “The refund exceeds the customer's credit balance after the charges.”
  • “Give the refund's mode, date and paying account.”
  • “The refund cannot be negative.”
  • “Nothing was billed or received on this booking; there is nothing to forfeit or refund.”
  • “A commission on this booking has been paid out and cannot be clawed back here.”
  • “Booking <no> cancelled; refund of <x> pending.”

Cancel booking: the refund, forfeiture, charges or clawback are refused

In the Cancel booking wizard, Next or the final Cancel booking would not go through, or a figure you typed was refused. The wizard works from one number, what the customer actually paid, and every forfeiture, charge and refund has to fit inside it.

What you see

Step 1 (Entries reversed) and Step 2 (Forfeiture & charges) on a booking with no money:

  • The blue note "Nothing was billed or received on this booking: cancelling releases the unit (an allottee's comes off their offer, back to its previous status) and parking and marks the opportunity lost, with no accounting entries, forfeiture or refund." and, on step 2, "Nothing was billed or received on this booking, so there is nothing to forfeit, charge or refund: these fields stay at zero and the booking is simply cancelled. Continue to the next step."
  • Forfeiture amount and Charge GST at <rate>% on the forfeiture are disabled, and Add charge is greyed out with "Nothing was billed or received, so there is nothing to charge against".
  • If a forfeiture, charge or refund reaches the final step anyway (for example from a page opened before the money was reversed elsewhere), it fails with "Nothing was billed or received on this booking; there is nothing to forfeit or refund."

Step 2 on a booking with money:

  • "No cancellation rule is in force; enter the forfeiture directly." means neither the project nor the organization has a Booking cancellation rule effective on the Cancellation date, so no percentage is suggested and Forfeiture amount starts empty.

Step 3 (Refund):

  • The warning "The charges exceed what was received by <x>; that stays open as a receivable bill on the customer ledger." when the forfeiture and charges add up to more than the customer paid. Refund amount is then disabled at zero.
  • "At most <x>." in red under Refund amount, and Next greyed out, when you type more than the credit balance. If the figure still reaches the server, the final step fails with "The refund exceeds the customer's credit balance after the charges." (the server's own text reads "The refund <x> exceeds the customer's credit balance after charges (<y>)").
  • "The refund cannot be negative." for a refund below zero.
  • "Give the refund's mode, date and paying account." when a refund above zero is sent without those details. The wizard always sends them, so you meet this only when a cancellation is made another way, such as through the AI assistant.

Step 4 (Confirm): "A commission on this booking has been paid out and cannot be clawed back here." when you press Cancel booking with Claw back the unpaid commission ticked on step 1 and any commission on the booking is Partially Paid or Paid. Step 1 offers the box only when at least one commission can still be clawed back, so this happens when the booking carries a second commission that has already been paid, or one was paid while the wizard was open.

When everything fits, the toast reads "Booking <no> cancelled; refund of <x> pending." (without the refund part when it is zero) and the booking opens with its cancelled banner.

Why it happens

The wizard reverses the booking's demands with credit notes. What the customer paid against them becomes a credit we owe on the customer ledger. The forfeiture (with its GST), the other charges (with their GST) and, if you leave it ticked, the TDS the buyer deducted on receipts are then debited to that ledger in one journal. What is left is the customer's credit balance, and that is the most that can be refunded: received (gross) − forfeiture − GST on forfeiture − charges − GST on charges − TDS reversed. A lower refund leaves the difference as a credit on the ledger.

Example: agreed price ₹1,00,00,000 excluding GST, rule 10 % of the agreed total, so a suggested forfeiture of ₹10,00,000. Received ₹20,00,000 gross, of which ₹20,000 was TDS the buyer deposited (net ₹19,80,000), TDS reversed, no GST or other charges. The journal debits ₹10,20,000, the credit balance is ₹9,80,000, and the default refund is ₹9,80,000. Typing ₹10,00,000 gets "At most 9,80,000.00." (the wizard shows the figure without the ₹ sign).

If the charges are larger than what was received, there is no credit to refund and the shortfall stays open on the customer ledger as a bill named FORFEIT-<booking no>, to be collected or written off by a manual journal later. When nothing was billed or received there is no ledger movement at all, so the forfeiture, charges and refund must stay at zero.

The suggested forfeiture comes from the Booking cancellation rules under Settings > Organization: the project's rule in force on the cancellation date wins, else the organization's. An organization starts with a rule that forfeits 10 % of the agreed total, with no GST and no extra charges, in force from 1 January 2000. The last organization-level rule cannot be deleted, so "no rule in force" means every rule has been given an Effective from later than your cancellation date; you then enter the figure yourself.

A commission that has been paid out is money already with the channel partner. The wizard can cancel an Accrued commission or reverse an Approved one, but recovering paid brokerage is a separate matter with the partner, so it refuses the clawback rather than pretend.

How to fix it

  1. Refund too high: on step 3 lower Refund amount to the Credit balance shown in the Customer ledger card (or press Back and lower the forfeiture or charges on step 2), then Next.
  2. Charges exceed receipts: decide whether that is intended. Lower the forfeiture or remove charges on step 2 to refund something, or continue: the shortfall stays as a receivable bill on the customer ledger, visible on the ledger report.
  3. No rule in force: type Forfeiture amount yourself, or first add a rule under Settings > Organization > Booking cancellation rules > Add rule with an Effective from on or before the cancellation date (the Edit permission on Organization Settings; in the default roles the Administrator), then change the Cancellation date on step 1 and back to refresh the suggestion.
  4. Nothing billed or received: leave the forfeiture, charges and refund at zero and press Next through to step 4; the booking is cancelled without accounting entries.
  5. Commission already paid: untick Claw back the unpaid commission on step 1. Recover the brokerage from the partner outside the wizard, for example by a manual journal voucher on the partner's ledger.
  6. Refund details missing: on step 3 set Refund date, Mode and From our account (or leave the refund at zero).
  7. Press Cancel booking on step 4. Finishing needs the Edit permission on Bookings, the Edit permission on Demands and the Create permission on Payments together; in the default roles only the Administrator holds all three.
  8. After cancelling, pay the refund: open the "refund payout" link in the booking's banner and Mark cleared on the Payment, or collect several refunds in a Refunds run on Payout runs (the Edit permission on Payments to clear; the Approve permission on Payments to approve a run).

Related

  • Cancel bookingScreen

    The four-step wizard that cancels a booking: it shows the demands and receipts that will be reversed, suggests the forfeiture and charges from the rule in force, sets the refund and posts everything in one go, releasing the unit and parking and marking the opportunity lost.

  • OrganizationScreen

    Your organization's profile and policies: name and invitation expiry, the two-factor requirement, the AI connectors switch, the help-assistant recording switch, the project defaults every project inherits (RERA gate, estimate validity, the two chargeable areas, carpet area offered, revenue method and trigger) and the effective-dated rules: the RERA escrow share that splits every sweep of a project's collection account, TDS on sales and booking cancellation.

  • Payout runsScreen

    Every payout run of the chosen books, the dialog that drafts a new run of member benefits, commissions or refunds, and the scheduled rules that draft runs automatically.

  • PaymentScreen

    One receipt or payout: its details, amounts and allocations, and the actions to clear it, bounce it, cancel it, edit it or delete it.

  • CommissionScreen

    One channel-partner commission: the partner, the brokerage with GST and TDS, the payouts against it, and the actions to edit, approve, cancel or delete it.

  • Demand or commission cannot be cancelled, edited or approved: payments are against it, or its status forbidsTroubleshooting

    A demand with receipts, or a commission with payouts, cannot be cancelled until that money is bounced, cancelled or reallocated; and once issued or approved, the document's figures are fixed, so only a Draft demand or an Accrued commission can be edited or deleted.

  • Posting stopped: a charge component or standard ledger is missing from these booksTroubleshooting

    A demand, payout, commission, cancellation or revenue run could not post because a charge component has no ledger in the promoter's books, or a template ledger or group the posting needs was never copied into them; map the component or sync the templates, then retry.