Supplier returns

Where

Purchase Transactions → Supplier returns

Plan

Growth and above

Permission

Purchasing → Supplier Return

How to return goods to a supplier

1. Go to Purchase Transactions → Supplier returns.
2. Click New return.
3. Choose the Location the goods are leaving and the Supplier.
4. Set the Return date.
5. If the goods came in on a particular delivery, paste its Good receipt ID. Optional, but it makes the return reverse at the exact value you were charged.
6. Choose a Reason: Damaged, Defective, Expired, Wrong item, Over-shipment, Quality issue, Buyer error or Other.
7. Choose the Outcome you expect: Credit memo, Refund, Replacement or Store credit.
8. Under Products, click Add product for each item and enter the Quantity and Unit cost.
9. Add Notes if useful.
10. Click Save draft, or Save & post to send the goods back.

You will see Return posted.

How to cancel a posted return

1. Find the return and click Cancel in the row menu.
2. Confirm.

This genuinely unwinds everything: the stock comes back in at its original cost and the accounting entry is reversed, all in one step.

There is no time limit on this — a months-old return can still be cancelled — so take care in a closed accounting period.

Only a draft can be edited or deleted.

What posting does

Stock	Leaves your shelf, drawing down the cost layers it came in on.
Accounts	Accounts Payable is debited — what you owe the supplier goes down — against stock value and input tax.
Reservations	Blocked if the units are reserved for a backorder or hold. Release them first.

What to watch out for

A return does not create a credit note on the supplier’s account

Your accounts are reduced by the value of the return, but no credit document appears on the supplier’s account. There is nothing to show against their next invoice and nothing to match their credit note to.

If you raise a vendor credit note by hand under Financials → Vendor Credit Notes, you will reduce what you owe twice — once by the return and once by the credit note. Nothing warns you or stops you.

Until this is joined up, pick one: let the return do the accounting and use the credit note only as a paper record, or agree a convention with your bookkeeper. Do not let both post.

Batch and serial numbers on a return are only notes

The line has Batch and Serial boxes, but nothing checks them. The system will not verify the batch exists, will not take the stock from that specific batch, and will not stop you returning a serial number you never received or already sold.

• Nothing checks the return against the original delivery. Linking a good receipt is optional, and even when you do, no one compares your quantity against what you received. You can return ten of something you only ever bought five of.
• Returning more than you bought invents a cost. Rather than refusing, the system values the excess at the current cost.
• A return can move stock without touching your accounts. If the relevant accounts are not set up, the goods leave and the document completes with no accounting entry and no warning.
• Approvals apply. Above your threshold, Save & post parks the return for approval and nothing moves until it is approved.
• Needs a connection.

Related

• Receiving goods
• Suppliers
• Good returns — customers returning goods to you