You cannot. Accounts receivable records how customer owe you–in this case, a negative amount because you owe the customer. Accounts payable records how much you owe suppliers. This is not just a matter of where the amount shows on the balance sheet, but also how the amount can be used against future invoices and how it can be cleared by paying a refund.
Prior to July 2016, such advances were posted to an automatic account, Customer credits. That was changed when the current method for processing payments not associated with invoices was implemented. The change was described in this release note: [16.7.73] Categorization against customer and supplier accounts more intuitive.