Processing a Refund/Disbursing Funds

Last Revised:  November 19, 2018

Only authorized users will have access to these screens.

A Refund transaction should be used when a payment by check was for a greater amount than the amount due.  You can refund funds for overpayments made when paying escrow for dealers and for payments taken in the Special Inventory Tax system that are owed to the Appraisal District for payment of fines assessed by the County Attorney (or whomever assesses fines in your county).

Refunds are stored in tax units.  Each tax office can select the jurisdictions assigned to each refund type.

Notes: If you want to process a refund, and there is a more recent refund pending within a given month, then you must process the most recent one first before you can process the older one.  For example, if there are two refunds for the month of May, one on the 10th and one on the 20th, the one on the 20th must be refunded first.

You cannot refund overpayments of fines and penalties.

User Entitlements

The following user entitlements are used on this screen. They are part of the Manage SI Refunds task, which is part of the SI Head Cashier job. See Tasks, Entitlements, and Jobs for more information.

SI_REFUNDS_DEPOSIT: Access to query and create online deposits

SI_REFUNDS_CHANGE_DEPDATES: Ability to change deposit and receipt dates when creating a refund deposit

SI_SHOW_DEPCTL_TOTALS: Show deposit control totals (granted by default)

  1. Make sure that the refund amount has been transferred from the escrow payment tax unit (in Harris County, for ex., unit 94) to the correct refund unit (in Harris County, for ex., the overpayment unit is 8060 and the Appraisal District unit is 8070). These units must be added in the Tax Unit Maintenance screen first.
  2. Double-click Refund/Disbursement on the Main Menu.
  3. In the Deposit Control screen,  open or re-open a refund deposit.
  4. Click Refund/Disburse Transaction; the Refunds screen will appear.  To send money to the Appraisal District, click the Special Disbursements tab.
  5. If you are carrying an account number from another screen it will appear in the Account No field.  If not, then enter a number in the space provided.

Note: If you do not know the account number, select Account Search in the Go To list. For more information, see Searching for an Account.

  1. Press F8.  All pending refunds for the account will appear.
  2. Click the Include box at the end of the row next to the refund(s) you want to process.
  3. Click the Select All; button to choose all the refunds listed.
  4. Click Refund ProcessThe refund(s) you just selected will be marked with an RF status and all pending refunds having an RF status will be displayed. You will not be able to process these RF refunds a second time.

Notes: At this point, the refund is ready to be sent to TaxLedge, where the refund check will be printed. For overpayment refunds, the address printed on the check will be the one selected in the Owner Master screen in the Mail Flag box. For Special Disbursement refunds, the checks will be addressed to the jurisdiction entity, but this address may changed in TaxLedge.

Once the check is printed and the refund has been posted back to the Special Inventory system (a process that is begun in TaxLedge), the status is changed to RD. These refunds cannot be viewed on the Refunds screen, but a note will be entered in the Notes screen.

If you go to the Account Status screen after processing the refund and double-click on the line containing the refund amount, you will see the original pending refund as a positive amount and the processed refund as a pending amount. Refunds are displayed as negative amounts, with no Sales Amount or Escrow Due.