Open the invoice the credit is attached to, find the credit listed in that invoice's payment history, and click through to the transaction that applied it. Remove the checkmark next to the credit there and save. The credit goes back to being available and unapplied; nothing about it gets deleted. Here's the full process, and the couple of ways it can go wrong.
1. Open the invoice. Go to Sales > Invoices, find the one the credit was applied to, and open it.
2. Find the credit in the payment history. Below the invoice total, QuickBooks lists what's been applied against it: payments, and any credit memo that was used to cover part or all of the balance.
3. Click the credit to open the transaction that applied it. This opens the Receive payment screen that was used (or generated automatically) when the credit got applied, not the credit memo itself.
4. Clear the checkmark next to the credit. In the Credits section of that screen, uncheck the box next to the credit memo or overpayment you want to detach. Don't delete the transaction outright, just remove that one checkmark.
5. Save. The invoice balance goes back up by the amount of the credit, and the credit becomes available again to apply to a different invoice, or to refund.
The credit memo itself doesn't have an obvious "unapply" button sitting on it, so the instinct is to delete the credit memo and start over. That works, but it throws away the record of why the credit existed in the first place, and you have to recreate it from scratch if you still need it.
The other common trip-up is editing the wrong invoice. If a credit got split across two invoices, removing it from one doesn't touch the other, so check each invoice it's listed against if the goal is to free up the whole amount rather than just part of it.
None of this is complicated once you know where the checkmark actually lives. It's just not where most people go looking first, since QuickBooks doesn't surface an "unapply" action from the credit memo's own screen.
When a return gets reversed or a dispute gets resolved in your order or support system, the matching QuickBooks credit gets unapplied and reapplied to the right invoice automatically, instead of someone chasing down which invoice it landed on by hand.
Credits that sit applied against an invoice that later gets disputed or voided get flagged for someone to check, instead of a mismatched credit quietly staying attached to a transaction that no longer makes sense.
Tell us where a credit tends to land on the wrong invoice, or sit forgotten on the right one, and we'll tell you if the fix-up step can run itself.
Tell us how credits and overpayments usually show up in your business, a return, a double payment, a dispute, and we'll tell you whether the cleanup can happen on its own. This isn't just about credits either; the same question is worth asking about anything else in your books that needs a human to notice and fix it by hand.
Let's talk →Similar idea, different transaction. Open the payment itself (from the invoice, or from Sales > All Sales), and if it covers more than one invoice, uncheck the specific invoice you want it removed from, then save. The payment stays on record; it just no longer covers that invoice.
Same mechanic on the bills side. Open the bill the vendor credit was applied to, click through to the Pay bills transaction that used it, clear the checkmark next to the credit, and save. The vendor credit becomes available to apply to a different bill.
No. Unapplying only removes the link between the credit and that specific invoice. The credit memo itself stays exactly as it was, just unattached, ready to apply elsewhere or refund.
It goes back up by whatever the credit covered. If the credit had brought the invoice to zero, the invoice goes back to showing an open balance due until you apply something else to it or the customer pays it directly.