Learn about the difference between online and offline payments/refunds and when to use each.
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Online Payment and Refunds
Record an offline transaction in Firefly
What if I accidently process a payment offline?
What if I accidently process a refund offline?
Online vs Offline
Online payments and refunds are initiated through Firefly through an integrated payment processor. Online transactions are payments on the reservation portal or guest portal; card payments and refunds processed with a terminal, by manual entry, or using a payment method on file. Also, as bank transfers are only available if a payment processor is integrated in your system, these are online transactions as well.
Offline payments and refunds are used for recording purposes only. Offline transactions are not actually processed through an integrated payment processor but allow you to document in Firefly payments or refunds made outside of the system.
A few examples of when you would want to use the offline process method are transactions occurring in a non-integrated payment system like Venmo or PayPal and transactions initiated directly through your processor. Most payment processor's offer the option to void same day transactions but some also allow you to initiate payments or refunds directly through them in special circumstances.
Highlighted below is the process method you will select when documenting an offline transaction in Firefly.
New Payment popup showing offline process method
Record an offline transaction in Firefly
To document offline payment in Firefly, you simply select the payment process method Collect payment offline. You will then notice a red warning statement reminding you offline payments are NOT processed through Firefly. Click Save to record your offline payment.
In the payment's details line you will see the word "offline" in the parenthesis ( ) after Credit/Debit Card. Again, this is a reminder that no real money was actually processed through Firefly.
Recorded offline payment
You can also record offline refunds in Firefly. Click 
next to the payment and select refund. Then select the payment refund method Process refund offline, as shown below.
NOTE: If a payment was made offline, you will only be able to process a credit/debit card refund offline. However, all payment methods allow refunds by cash, check, or reservation credit.
What if I accidently process a payment offline?
More than likely, you will be processing payments through Firefly and will always want to be taking ONLINE payments using the payment method a guest has on file (if using Credit/debit or ACH). Good news, if you accidently select Collect Payment Offline instead of Use Card on File and hit save you can easily reverse the offline payment and redo it correctly using the card on file
First find the payment that was taken offline and click 
next to the payment. You will then see a dropdown. Any offline payment is able to be deleted since it's just a recording, thus simply just hit Delete. This will not affect any reporting in the future.
Select Delete to remove the offline payment
This will then remove the offline payment and reset the charge for a payment to be added again. Now to correctly add an online payment, add a new payment and select Use Card on File. Read here for more instruction on payments
What if I accidently process a refund offline?
Sometimes a user will take payment correctly but then accidently process a refund offline. Just like payments, this means that no money was actually returned the the customers card, the refund was just recorded.
For example, take the picture below. A payment was taken ONLINE to a guests Credit Card for $280. However, when the refund was being done, the issuer accidently selected "Process Refund Offline", thus issuing it as an OFFLINE refund.
Example of offline refund
However, good news, as mentioned above any offline payment/refund can easily be deleted without affecting anything else since its just a recording. Simply just hit next to the refund and select Delete. Once deleted you can go back and process the refund correctly back "To the Credit/Debit Card used to pay".