Refunds and Returns

In a perfect world, all orders would be placed, paid, shipped, and then never need any further action. In reality, there will likely be instances where a customer requires refunding and this may also impact on stock control.

The Refund Options

In Tradebox, when you refund an order you'll have 4 options. If Tradebox is set to No Products for stock control, or you're linking Tradebox to an accounts package but are only posting financial entries, you will not be able to choose either of the Stock Returned options as they don't apply to you.

• Full With Stock Returned
  • Refunds the full value of the order including carriage
  • The refund value will match the order value exactly; where a discount was included on the order, the discounted amount will be what is refunded
  • All items on the order will be adjusted back into stock 
• Full With No Stock Returned
  • Refunds the full value of the order including carriage
  • The refund value will match the order value exactly; where a discount was included on the order, the discounted amount will be what is refunded
  • No items will be adjusted back into stock; special product codes are used
• Partial With Stock Returned
  • You'll be presented with a fully editable view of the refund
  • This will default to Full With Stock Returned rules, but you can edit the following fields and in so doing, affect the total amount refunded:
    • Unit price of refund
    • Quantity returned
    • Carriage amount
• Partial With No Stock Returned
  • You'll be presented with a fully editable view of the refund
  • The item lines on the order will show the SKU as Refunded; this will not impact on stock control
  • The totals will default to the full value of all items on the order plus carriage, you can edit the following fields and in so doing, affect the total amount refunded:
    • Quantity
    • Unit Price; editing this will update the net and tax amounts per item
    • Carriage Net Amount; editing this will update the carriage tax amount

Whichever refund method you choose, you're also in control of the date of the refund. The tax codes used will be as they were on the original order, per item line, and this also holds true of carriage tax code.

Pre-requisites for Refunds

• A refund in Tradebox can only be raised against an order that's already present in the order list
  • It's not possible to raise a refund-only transaction with no corresponding order, or to refund an order that's been deleted from Tradebox
• Any order of any status is valid for refund, with the exception of Query
  • Orders in a query status must have their query resolved (click here for our guide to resolving queries) before they can be refunded
• Each order can only be refunded once
  • This holds true whether the original refund was full or partial
  • It also holds true even if the refund that was raised has since been deleted from Tradebox

How to Raise a Refund

In the orders screen, double click the order to get a detailed view. Click the Action menu and then select Refund Order.

This will bring up the refund wizard:

Choose the Refund Type you wish to use, and set the date. If you choose either type of full refund, simply click on Finish and you'll be taken back to the orders list.

If you choose either type of partial refund, you'll be presented with some further options. 

This allows you to choose the items that are being refunded, their quantities, and adjust the amounts. You can also choose whether or not carriage is refunded on this screen.

If you choose Partial Refund with No Stock Returned, instead of seeing the SKU of the product you'll see a generic product code of REFUNDED, to avoid adjusting any stock levels.

The Sales Credit

Once you've completed the refund wizard, the order list will show both the original order (in black, with a status of Refunded) and the sales credit; designated by the SC type in the first column and the red text.

The Channel No is the same on both, so you can always trace back the refunded order and the SC by searching the original marketplace order number. The SC does have its own No as it's a separate order record within Tradebox.

Both the order and the refund are locked for editing at this point. If you open the SC to view details you'll see a bar at the top of the screen indicating which order the refund was raised from. Beyond that, you can print, search and filter both the refunded order and the SC, the same as any other order.

Stock Adjustment in Tradebox

This section only applies if you have chosen Tradebox as your stock control method.

If you've chosen a full refund with stock returned or a partial refund, Tradebox will adjust the stock back in of the relevant lines. You'll see this in the Activity tab of each product record as an AI (adjustment in) on the refund date.

Posting to Sage

If you have an accounts link set up to Sage, the behaviour of the refund will depend on whether the original order was posted to accounts at the time when the refund was raised.

• If the original order was posted to accounts, Tradebox marks the order as refunded and raises the SC as complete. The refund SC is valid for posting to Sage, but the original order will not post a second time.
• If the original order was not posted to accounts, Tradebox marks the order as refunded and raises the SC as complete. Neither the original order or the SC will post to Sage.

To check whether an order has been posted to accounts already, check the Sage Ref column in the order list (the last column on the right by default); 0 indicates not posted, posted orders display the invoice/order number from your accounts package.

If the other posting criteria are in place, the SC will be passed to Sage along with the next batch of orders.

This will raise as a product credit note or service credit note in Sage with the following differences from the original order/invoice:

• The date will be the refund date chosen in the refund wizard
• The customer order number will be the marketplace's order number for the original order
• If you chose a full refund with stock returned, this will raise using the Sage products (assuming Sage stock control)
• If it was a full refund with no stock returned, or a partial refund, any item lines that aren't included as returned items will raise as an S3 Special Product in Sage
  • On a partial refund, any items not included in the refund will raise an S3 line for zero value. This is to keep the number of item lines consistent with the original order in Tradebox's database. Zero-value S3 lines cause no problems in Sage data.
• On update ledgers, any products included will raise an AI (adjustment in) stock transaction, per normal Sage product credit behaviour
• On update ledgers, any S3 lines will raise purely as financial transactions with no stock movement
• If your accounts link is set to raise service invoices, a service credit will be raised. This again purely raises as financial transactions with no stock control

When you update ledgers on the credit note, this will raise one or more SC transactions (sales credit transactions). These will be outstanding and need to be allocated against another transaction to close them off.

• If your Tradebox is set to raise invoices without automatically paying them off, the SI(s) (sales invoice transactions) may still be outstanding.
  • If so, you should allocate the outstanding SI and SC transactions in the Customer Receipts screen. This would reflect a cancelled order where no money changed hands.
• If the original invoice has been paid, you should instead raise a Customer Refund (SP) transaction to pay off the credit
  • Whilst Tradebox can automatically raise receipts against invoices, it cannot automatically raise a customer refund transaction to reflect money being paid back from your bank to your customer in Sage

This credit note was raised from a partial refund in Tradebox. Only the whiteboard on Line 2 was returned and carriage refunded.

Posting to Xero

If you have an accounts link set to Xero, credit notes can be posted to your accounts. A credit note will only be posted if the original invoice has been posted.

To check whether an order has been posted to accounts already, check the Xero Ref column in the order list (the last column on the right by default); 0 indicates not posted, posted orders display the invoice/order number from your accounts package.

If the other posting criteria are in place, the SC will be passed to Xero along with the next batch of orders.

The credit note will be created with or without inventory items depending on whether you’ve chosen to create a refund with or without stock returned.

These will be raised with the following differences from the original invoice:

• The date of the credit note will be the date chosen in the refund wizard
• The reference will be the Tradebox order number of the refund (found in the No. column in the Tradebox order list)
• If you raise a full refund with stock returned, this will use the Xero products and adjust stock back in.
• Partial refunds will be raised as showing only the refunded items
• If stock is being returned, this will show as an adjustment in on the products
• If you’re set to raise invoices without inventory items, credit notes will also show as financial entries only

If the original invoice is still set to Awaiting Payment in Xero, you will need to manually allocate the credit to the invoice from within the credit note in Xero. If the invoice is already showing as paid, you would instead process the credit note as a cash refund.

This credit note was created as a partial refund from Tradebox. The line which was not refunded does not appear at all on the credit note. Credit notes can be allocated to outstanding invoices using the Allocate Credit option under the Credit Note Options button shown in the top right hand corner of the screenshot. If the invoice is already paid, you can make a cash refund using the Add Refund button at the bottom of the page.