Hi Brian124,
Welcome to the QuickBooks Online Community family! Properly recording your transactions is essential to keep your books accurate. With several great features in QuickBooks Online, it has never been easier to run your business. I'll be happy to assist you with this.
There are different ways to enter money-in and money-out transactions in the system. The method or approach you choose depends on the type of transaction, and how you and your account prefers to handle your books. I can see how saving your payoff as a customer refund receipt wouldn't be accurate as you don't have a Product/Service associated with it. In situations where you have a money-out movement like this, you can either enter a Cheque and select an appropriate Category for your payoff, or use a Journal entry to record your transaction. Because journal entries are only recommended if you're well-versed in accountingt principles, I strongly recommend reaching out to your accountant to make sure everything is lining up correctly should you use that approach. You can invite your accountant as a user in your account by going to the My accountant menu and using the provided field to complete the invite. Alternatively, you can select Find a Pro Accountant below to access our accountants' list.
To assist you during the creation of a journal entry, here's an article: Create a journal entry in QuickBooks Online
For more on how to enter a cheque in QuickBooks Online, check out this article: How to write cheques
I hope this helps! Have a great day.
