Turn a cancelled booking's money into a voucher

When a guest cancels and can't travel, a refund isn't the only way to part well. Convert the money you already hold into a voucher: the guest keeps every dollar of it as credit for a future stay, and the money stays with you instead of going back across the counter.

Why offer it

Under most cancellation policies a late-cancelling guest loses part of their money, and the conversation is unpleasant on both sides. A voucher changes the offer: full value, kept for whenever they can travel. Guests say yes to that far more readily than to a partial refund — and the money stays in your account until the rebooked stay happens.

Convert during cancellation

1. Open the booking and click Cancel.
2. If the guest is getting part of the money back, refund that part from the Payments tab first — the voucher amount follows automatically.
3. Click Convert to voucher instead. The dialog shows the exact amount the voucher will carry — everything collected minus everything refunded. There's nothing to type and no way for the figure to be wrong.
4. Confirm. The booking is cancelled, the voucher is created, and its code is shown with a copy button — send it to the guest.

The bookkeeping happens on its own: the money you hold is re-recorded in Xero as voucher credit rather than a refund owed, so your books say precisely what your guest believes. And the voucher keeps its provenance — open it later under Accounting → Vouchers and it shows exactly which payments on the cancelled booking became its value, each linking back to that booking.

Voucher or cancellation charge — one or the other

Cancelling with held money resolves one of two ways: keep it as revenue with a cancellation charge, or keep it as the guest's credit with a voucher. Whichever you choose settles the booking's money — you can't do both, and there's no third option that leaves the money in limbo.

How the voucher redeems later

From here it's an ordinary voucher. When the guest books again, open the new booking's Payments tab, click Redeem voucher, and apply the code — the credit pays the new stay like money, and anything left over keeps for the stay after that. See vouchers: issue, redeem and track.

Troubleshooting

The dialog names a blocker instead of an amount

Most often a recent payment hasn't finished flowing to Xero yet. Wait a few minutes and try again — the amount appears once everything has settled.

It says there's no value to convert

The voucher can only carry money you actually hold. If everything was refunded — or nothing was ever collected — there's nothing to convert, and the booking simply cancels.