Q: A customer brought something back and wants proof in their inbox. How do I email a refund receipt from Octabiz, and which document do I send?
Since v1.20.1387 (30 October 2026), you can email a refund receipt from Octabiz, and the same fix covers credit notes and sales receipts, so all three documents can go to the customer by email.
For this note I went through our release notes and our earlier posts on store credit, gift receipts and rug shop returns. Below, I'll walk through what changed, which document fits which moment (a sale, a return paid out as money, or a return given as store credit), a short routine to test it, and who it helps most before the holiday returns start.
In short
Key takeaways
Since v1.20.1387 (30 October 2026), credit notes, sales receipts and refund receipts can be emailed from Octabiz.
Send a sales receipt for a sale, a refund receipt when money goes back, and a credit note when the return becomes store credit.
Do one test return before the holiday rush and email the document to your own address.
What changed in Octabiz
The release is listed as a fix: "fix(email): credit notes, sales receipts and refund receipts can be emailed (P7-46)". In plain words, all three documents can now be emailed to the customer from Octabiz.
That is everything the release note says. It doesn't mention automatic sending, email templates or attachments. Check those on your own screen.
A few earlier releases make returns easier to trace:
- v1.20.302: every sale gets a receipt reference and shows its order number, even when the sale was made offline.
- v1.20.326: each till gives out its own receipt numbers, and receipts show the sale date.
- v1.20.303: when a customer overpays online, the extra becomes customer credit.
- v1.20.1379 (29 October 2026): you can apply a customer's credit from the job page payment card.
- v1.20.1511 (2 November 2026): refunds by tender at the till.
How to email it, step by step
The release note confirms the three documents can be emailed. It doesn't name the screens or buttons. The steps below follow the order of a normal return.
Email the right document after a sale or a return
- 1
Record the sale or the return
Ring up the sale, or record the return as a refund or as store credit, the way you normally do in Octabiz.
- 2
Pick the matching document
Sales receipt for a sale, refund receipt for money back, credit note for store credit.
- 3
Check the customer's email address
Make sure the address you're sending to is the one the customer gave you, since a typo means the proof never arrives.
- 4
Email it to the customer
Since v1.20.1387, credit notes, sales receipts and refund receipts can be emailed, so send it from Octabiz instead of printing or typing an email by hand.
- 5
Confirm it arrived
Ask the customer to check their inbox before they leave, or test on yourself first (see the last section).
Not every system sends these on its own, which is why the last step is there: Mindbody's support guide says its return and refund receipts are not sent automatically and must be triggered by hand (that is their product, not ours).
Who this helps
This is for small retail, gift and furniture shops, and rug dealers who handle sales and returns in Octabiz and get asked for proof by email, which happens most in the weeks after the holidays.
Returns are rarely the main complaint, but they do show up: in our study of rug shop returns, based on 3,242 Google reviews from September 2026, return or refund friction came up for 9 of 276 U.S. rug retailers.
- 3.3%
- of 276 U.S. rug retailers had return or refund friction in negative reviews (9 of 276)
- 9.8%
- of the same stores had rude or hostile staff in negative reviews (27 stores)
Rudeness came up three times as often as the return itself. How the return is handled is what customers remember. Sending a clear receipt or credit note to their inbox is one small part of handling it well.
Try it on your next return
Before the holiday rush, ring up a small test sale, return it as a refund (or as store credit), and email the refund receipt or credit note to your own address so you see exactly what your customers will get.
Send your first emailed refund receipt
Where this came from
The research, methods, and photos behind this article.
Sources cited
Credits
There are three moments at the counter, and each one has its own document:
| Situation | Document to email | What the customer gets |
|---|---|---|
| They bought something | Sales receipt | Proof of the sale |
| They returned it and got their money back | Refund receipt | Proof the money was paid back |
| They returned it and took store credit | Credit note | Proof of the credit they can spend later |
The credit note matters more than it looks, because as our post on store credit vs refund explains, unspent credit is still money the shop owes, so it belongs on your books as a liability and the customer deserves a written record of it.
If you want words for the counter, offer both options: "Happy to sort this out. I can put the full amount back on your card today, or put it on your account as store credit if you'd rather pick something else."
Gift returns usually land on the credit side: as our gift receipts post puts it, the person returning a gift usually gets an exchange or store credit, because the cash refund belongs to whoever paid, so the credit note is the one to email them.