In a recent Business Bloomer Club Slack thread, a member raised a tricky use case involving store credit.
They needed to assign fixed credit amounts (e.g. €1000) to registered customers via the admin panel, ensure it covered both products and shipping, and allow mixed payments (partial credit, partial card). Additionally, the credit had to expire on a specific date and be editable after order creation.
They tested various plugins from the WooCommerce marketplace but ran into common issues: some didn’t deduct shipping from the credit, others failed when taxes were involved, and most were incompatible with existing coupons.
This sparked a deeper conversation about existing solutions, and a plugin developer chimed in with valuable insight: they’re rebuilding the Store Credit experience to address these gaps, and will be rolling it out under the “Account Funds” architecture — which avoids the limitations of coupon-based store credit.
Here’s a summary of the requirements and plugin roadmap.
The Store Credit Requirements
The original poster broke down their needs clearly. They weren’t looking for fancy gifting workflows or customer-driven top-ups. Just a simple and reliable way to:
Assign credit from the backend
The administrator should be able to add funds to any user account, with an optional expiration date. The balance needs to be stored per-user, independently of orders or coupons.
Deduct shipping, tax, and all costs
The full order total — including shipping rates and taxes — must be deducted from the customer’s store credit balance. A plugin that ignores shipping fees isn’t viable.
Allow mixed payments at checkout
If the customer’s credit doesn’t fully cover the order, they should be able to pay the remaining amount using another payment method — like credit card or PayPal.
Show the balance to customers
At checkout, the customer should see their current balance before placing the order. The same goes for the My Account area, where the balance and transaction history should be visible.
Enable admin-side adjustments
Sometimes orders change. If the admin edits an order in the backend, the store credit should be re-calculated, or at least manually adjustable from within the order screen.
Why Coupons Don’t Work
A few WooCommerce.com plugins claim to offer store credit features:
- Store Credit
- Account Funds
Unfortunately, these aren’t built the same way.
The Store Credit plugin is essentially a custom coupon generator. While it’s useful for issuing a “gift card” type of discount, it relies on WooCommerce’s coupon system, which introduces major limitations:
- It can’t deduct shipping or tax reliably.
- It struggles with compatibility when another coupon is used in the same order.
- It doesn’t support partial payments — either the coupon covers the order or it doesn’t.
- Expiration dates are tied to the coupon, not to the user.
The Account Funds plugin is closer to a proper solution. It lets customers deposit money into their account and use it like a wallet. However, it’s designed primarily for user-initiated top-ups, not for admin-assigned funds. And it too had issues with tax and shipping, depending on setup.
A New Plugin Architecture Is in the Works
In the Slack thread, the developer of both plugins shared that they’re actively rebuilding the entire system. The new approach abandons coupon logic and treats store credit as actual account-based cash. The plugin will eventually be released under the Store Credit name, but its architecture will be entirely based on the Account Funds foundation.
Here’s what’s already working or being developed:
Working today
- Partial payments: If a customer has €300 credit and places a €400 order, they can pay the €100 difference via any other method.
- Checkout display: The store credit balance is shown at checkout, so customers know what’s being applied.
- Refund flexibility: Admins can choose to refund to store credit or back to the original payment method. Multiple refunds per order are possible.
In development
- Expiration support: Not part of the MVP, but expected soon after.
- Balance history: A backend- and frontend-visible ledger of all store credit usage per customer.
- Admin-side credit edits: Adjusting credit after an order is placed, or when an order is modified manually.
Notably, the developer confirmed that buying either plugin (Account Funds or Store Credit) today will grant access to the new, unified plugin once it’s released.
Conclusion
When it comes to store credit, most WooCommerce solutions still fall short of real-world use cases — especially when administrators need full control, taxes and shipping must be considered, and partial payments are expected. Thankfully, a new version of the official Store Credit plugin is on its way, built with a proper balance system in mind. Until then, workarounds exist, but come with compromises.
