Good returns

A good return records goods coming back, and — this is the important part — what you are doing about it. The outcome you choose changes everything: whether the item goes back on the shelf, whether the customer gets money, and whether the original sale is unwound.

Where

Sale Transactions → Good Returns

Plan

All plans

Permission

Sales → Good Return

Good returns are available on every plan.

How to take goods back

1. Go to Sale Transactions → Good Returns and click New return.
2. Pick the Original sale. (If your shop allows it, there is a No linked sale option; otherwise a sale is required.)
3. Set the Return date — today by default.
4. Choose the Outcome. This is the important choice — see the table below.
5. Under Items on this sale, tick each line the customer is bringing back. Use Select all if it is the whole order. Each row shows “Returned 1 of 3” so you can see what is left.
   • You can also scan the goods instead of ticking, which adds one unit per scan.
6. The ticked lines drop into the Items section below. Adjust the quantity with the − and + buttons — the helper shows Max, the most you may return.
7. Set each line’s Reason and its Condition (New, Used, Refurbished, Open box, Damaged or Other). Condition decides where the stock lands, so get it right.
8. If the outcome is a refund, add a row under Refunds: Amount, Method, Refund date and Reference.
9. Click Save & complete — or Save draft to finish later.

Ticking a line carries across the exact item, batch and serial, which is how the system stops the same goods being returned twice.

Price, discount and tax are locked on a sale-linked return

You cannot change what the customer paid. Discount and tax are worked out per returned unit automatically. Only a return with no linked sale lets you type these yourself.

How to give the money back

1. Under Refunds, click Add refund. The amount outstanding is filled in for you.
2. Choose the Method and set the Refund date and any Reference.
3. Complete the return.

If you are at a till with an open shift, the cash leaves your drawer at that moment.

Refunds usually have to go back the way they came

Unless your shop has allowed otherwise, the Method list only offers the tenders used on the original sale, with a note saying so. A cash refund against a card sale is refused: “The original sale was paid by card – a cash refund isn’t allowed.”

When a return has been through approval, the money is a separate step: find it in the list, click Pay out refund, and confirm. Only cash touches the drawer — card refunds are recorded but no card reversal is sent anywhere, so you must do that on the card terminal yourself.

Two buttons appear on rows where they will not work

Post and Pay out refund show on every row for anyone who can edit returns. On a row where they do not apply you just get a message saying so. Nothing is broken.

Field	Notes
Original sale	Strongly preferred; may be optional depending on your settings
Outcome	The most important field on the form — see below
Return date
Customer	Required when the outcome gives account credit
Restocking fee	Only appears on outcomes that can charge one
Reason, comment

Two rules are checked as you go: the return window (30 days by default), and — unless your shop allows it — you cannot refund cash on a sale that was paid by card. The refund methods offered are the ones the original sale actually used.

The seven outcomes

Outcome	Goods come back	Sale unwound	Customer gets	Fee possible
Refund	Yes, restocked	Yes	Money back	Yes
Exchange	Yes, restocked	Yes	Replacement goods; the difference settles either way	No
Replacement	Yes, restocked	No	An identical item	No
Store credit	Yes, restocked	Yes	A gift card or credit note	Yes
Account credit	Yes, restocked	Yes	A credit note on their account	Yes
Repair	No	No	Nothing yet — it is a record that the item is being repaired	No
Rejected	No	No	Nothing — you refused the return	No

Two of these catch people out:

Replacement is the warranty swap. The customer gets a new item, but the original sale is left completely alone — it never appears as a return in your figures. Use it when the sale was good and the goods were faulty.

Repair and Rejected move nothing at all. They are records. Repair lets you log repair jobs against the return once the draft is saved.

Posting it

Save as a draft, or Save & complete.

Save & complete is the point of no return

It runs exactly the same process as posting a saved draft. The green button at the bottom of a new return is not a gentler action — it commits everything below.

When a return is posted:

• The returned quantity is used up against the original sale line, so it cannot be returned again.
• The goods go back into stock at the original sale’s cost, not today’s cost. Items in a condition you cannot sell may be routed to a quarantine location instead of the shop floor — so on-hand does not always rise where you expect.
• A replacement item, if the outcome issues one, leaves stock like a normal sale.
• Credit is issued as a gift card or a credit note, depending on the outcome and your settings.
• The ledger is posted — the revenue and tax reversal, the money, and separately the stock value.
• Cash settles against your own till. Cash refunded leaves your drawer; a top-up on an exchange enters it.

If your shop requires approval for returns, the return parks as pending approval instead, and everything above happens in full when the approver approves. In that case the cash has not left the drawer yet, so a separate Pay out refund action appears for whoever hands the money over. See Approvals.

How to cancel a return

1. Find the return in the list.
2. Open the row menu and click Cancel, then confirm.

Cancelling reverses all of it: the returnable quantity goes back on the sale, the ledger entry is reversed, replacement items are pulled back, and the restock is undone at whichever location the goods actually went to.

Two things will stop it:

• The goods have since been sold again. Nothing can be unwound.
• The return issued store credit. Void the gift card or credit note first. The system will not claw back value the customer may already have spent.

Cancelling does not put the cash back in your drawer

If you handed money over, cancelling reverses the paperwork but not the drawer movement. Your till will be over by that amount at close unless you square it by hand with a pay-in.

Only a draft can be deleted.

Things worth knowing

• The restocking fee box only appears for refund, store credit and account credit. It is hidden on exchange and replacement.
• Returns do not work offline. The whole screen needs a connection.
• There is a time limit. Past your shop’s return window the save is refused with “This return is outside the allowed return window for the original sale.”
• Damaged goods may not go back to the shop floor even though the return succeeded — the Condition you picked sends them to quarantine instead.
• No reason is recorded when you cancel. The screen never asks for one, even though the record has a place for it.

A stray line of text on the form

When you pick an original sale, a line reading sales.goodReturn.currencyInherited appears under the currency field. It is a missing label, not an error — the return is fine. It means the currency is inherited from the original sale.

Related

• RMA requests — authorising a return before accepting it
• Approvals
• Selling at the till