Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Return Orders

Good customer service is one of the strategic goals for companies that strive for a high level of customer loyalty. For many wholesalers and distributors, a sales return is a standard element of their customer service policy, which directly influences customer's perception of the service level. As a web store administrator or a sales manager, you accept a sales return order to compensate a customer who is dissatisfied with an item that you have sold him or her. This could be due to a quality issue or delivery of a wrong item, for example.

For more information about how return orders are created from a Sana web store and RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) setup, see "Return Orders".

Sana provides two ways of creating an RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization):

• Invoice-based - A customer can create a return order based on invoice, by selecting the order lines from the invoice to return. In this case a return order can be created only when the order has been posted in Dynamics 365 Business Central and the invoice has been created. A customer can create a return order from the Posted invoice detail page in a Sana web store.

• Invoice-free - A customer can create a return order which is not connected to any sales document from the My return orders page, by adding a product to the return order. Such return orders should be checked and processed manually by a sales manager. This option is available to all customers.

When a customer creates a return order, all he or she has to do is:

• Choose one or several products and define quantity to return. If a customer creates a return order from invoice, he or she cannot return more than it was purchased.
• Select a return reason for a sales line. The list of return reasons is retrieved from Dynamics 365 Business Central. This is a required field.
• Optionally enter comments and attach files, for example a photo or a copy of a receipt, to provide shop admin with more details.

When the return order is created by a customer, it is saved to Dynamics 365 Business Central. Then, it is a responsibility of a sales manager or any other involved people to handle a return order. Handling of return processes involves different tasks that are performed by various company employees.

Those return orders which are created directly from a Sana web store can be seen in the standard list of sales return orders in Dynamics 365 Business Central and in the Webshop Orders Overview window.

Exact Cost Reversing Mandatory

From a customer's perspective a return order can be created in different ways:

• Based on the original sales document (invoice) or without connection to any document.
• With a possibility to split sales order lines or without.

The way a return order can be created from a Sana web store depends on the setup of the Exact Cost Reversing Mandatory option in the Sales & Receivables Setup window in Dynamics 365 Business Central. This setup triggers different business logic of return order processing in Dynamics 365 Business Central.

This function is used when the company wants to apply an exact cost reversing policy in connection with sales returns. This means that the sales return is valued at exactly the same cost as the original sale when being put back on inventory.

Enable Exact Cost Reversing Mandatory

When the option Exact Cost Reversing Mandatory is enabled, a customer can return less or the maximum quantity of an item which was purchased, and which is defined in the invoice. For example, if a customer purchased 5 pieces of an item, he or she can return all 5 or less. This could be due to a quality issue or wrong size, or color of one of the pieces, for example. If a customer returned not all pieces of an item, he or she can create another return order from the same invoice, if necessary, and return another piece or all that are left. When a customer creates a return order the maximum return quantity of an item from the invoice is shown. When the return order is posted in Dynamics 365 Business Central, the maximum return quantity is decreased. When all pieces of an item are returned, a customer will not be able to create another return order from the same invoice.

There is also a known limitation in Sana if you enable the option Exact Cost Reversing Mandatory and use Item Tracking. Item tracking is useful in quality control, for example when a customer has returned a defective item and you need to find out which lot this defective item came from. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central can track items using serial numbers and lot numbers.

If you enable the option Exact Cost Reversing Mandatory and use Item Tracking, in this case, the customer can return as many goods through the Sana web store as he or she purchased, but not less. For example, if the customer purchased 5 pieces of the item, he or she can return all 5 and not less, exactly the same quantity as indicated in the invoice. This is because Sana does not distinguish items by their serial numbers and lot numbers.

Disable Exact Cost Reversing Mandatory

When the option Exact Cost Reversing Mandatory is disabled, a customer can split up one sales line into multiple lines. For example, if a customer purchased 2 pieces of an item, he or she can split up this sales line into two and return one piece of an item due to one reason and another piece, because of another reason. This could be due to a wrong size of one piece of an item, and wrong color of another piece of an item, for example.

Return reasons

While creating a return order, a customer should select a return reason. This is a mandatory field and should be selected for all sales lines which a customer returns.

Return reasons which are shown in a Sana web store must be setup in Dynamics 365 Business Central. To create return reasons, choose the Search for Page or Report icon and enter Return Reasons.

In the Return Reasons window, you need to enter the code and description of a return reason. The description of a return reason is shown in a Sana web store. You must select the Visible in Webshop checkbox for all return reasons which should be available in the web store.

When the return order is created, the return reason is stored in the return order in Dynamics 365 Business Central for each sales line.

Comments

While creating a return order, a customer can enter a general comment for the return order header and for each sales line. All comments are stored in the return order in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

To see the general comment added to the return order header, open the return order and click: Return order > Comments.

On the screenshot below you can see an example of the return order header comments.

To see the comment added to the sales line, open the return order, select the sales line and click: Line > Comments.

File attachments

While creating a return order, a customer can add files to the return order, for example a photo or a copy of a receipt, to provide shop admin with more details. Files added to the return order are stored in the file system of Sana on the Web server. A web store administrator can view file attachments directly from Sana Admin using file manager.