Raising a return

An operator raises a claim from the order it belongs to: Orders → select order → Returns tab → Raise a return.

The tab carries a counter, so an order that already has claims says so before it is opened.

The dialog

Raise a return lists the order’s lines with a picture, the article number and how many of each may still be sent back. For every line a quantity and a reason are selected.

The reasons offered are the ones the merchant keeps in the register, described under Registers. They are grouped, so shipment problems and product faults do not sit in one long list.

The dialog also shows what the claim is worth back, calculated from the order, not from today’s price list. A price change after the order was placed does not move the figure, and neither does an expired promotion: the customer is owed what they paid.

Money taken off the order comes off that figure as well: a promotion, a voucher, or an amount credited by hand. Where the discount recorded which lines it came off, that record is used; otherwise it is spread across the lines in proportion to what they cost.

What the rules allow

Each line gets a verdict from the return rules before anything is saved:

• allowed — inside the window, nothing excludes it;
• allowed after confirmation — the customer has to confirm a condition first, for example that a hygiene seal is unbroken. Tick The customer confirmed this;
• refused — the window has passed, or an exclusion applies.

The verdict comes from the server, not from the screen, so the shop front and the admin can never give a customer two different answers.

Complaints about a faulty article are not subject to the return window or the exclusions. A broken seal therefore does not block a complaint, since opening the article is often how the defect was found.

Delivered on

The window is normally counted from despatch plus an assumed transit time, because the shop is not told when the parcel actually landed. If the customer states when it arrived, that date is entered in Delivered on: it takes precedence over the estimate and is kept with the claim.

Overriding a refusal

A refused line can still be claimed by somebody holding the Accept a return the shop does not owe privilege. The switch appears on the refused line, the claim is raised through a separate route, and the fact that the permission was used is recorded on the claim itself and is visible afterwards in the Rules at the time of the claim card.

Without that permission the refusal stands, and no switch is shown.

What gets recorded

The claim opens as Announced with the goods still with the customer. The Claim card holds the return number, the type (Withdrawal, Complaint or Cancellation), who raised it, and the amount claimed.

The Rules at the time of the claim card keeps the rules as they stood on the day. Rules edited later do not rewrite claims already raised: a dispute concerns the rules in force when the claim was made.

Raised at a counter

A claim can also start at a till: the cashier scans the receipt the customer brought back, chooses the lines and gives the money back on the spot.

What arrives here is an ordinary claim: the same document, the same states, the same return rules and the same reasons as one raised from the order, so it appears in the lists of this section like any other. Two things differ, because the goods and the customer were both present:

• the money has already gone back, so the claim carries its refund from the start;
• the goods were taken over the counter, so they are already back in the stock of the warehouse behind that till, as the movement Till refund, and nothing is waiting to be received.

The counter cannot issue a credit note for a sale that was invoiced; that document is raised in the Shopware administration. → Returns at the counter