About Returns

Use Return Material Authorizations (RMAs) to create the document that authorizes a customer to reject material.

Use the RMAs form to capture information about the customer who is rejecting the material and the reason for rejecting it. An RMA can only be created for a customer that exists in the system database. The currency defaults from the customer currency. You can translate the amount to domestic currency, however, credits can only be posted in the customer currency.

On the General tab, select the code which best describes the problem that led to the return of material in the Problem Code field.

Note: You can use these codes later to track or report what has caused customers to refuse to accept particular materials.

Use the RMA Line Items form to capture information about:

What materials are being returned. The items need not be in the Items form. However, if the item is an inventoried item, and if the original customer order and line numbers are known, you cannot authorize the return of greater quantities than were originally shipped.
Whether you expect the customer to return the material in question, and if so, to which warehouse.
How you will compensate the customer. The credit that will be provided to the customer is calculated on the RMA Line Items form. For more information about that calculation, see About Credit for Returns.
For more information about how to authorize a replacement item to be sent, see About RMA Replacements.
The disposition of the material when it is returned.

For more information on codes and parameters that you define to track issues of importance to you, see RMA Setup.

After it is created, the RMA (header and lines) becomes the central mechanism for tracking this particular customer transaction. Its progression is tracked through two status fields, one for the RMA header and one for each RMA line item. The status tracks the life cycle of the RMA as follows:

When a new header is created, the status is set to Open. Each line item also receives a status of Open when it is created.
When all material referenced in a line item is returned from the customer, the status of the line item is automatically changed to Filled.
Credit can only be posted for line items which have a status of Open or Filled. When all credit referenced in a line item is posted, the status of the line item is automatically changed to Closed. When all line items are closed, the header status is automatically changed to Closed. These automatic changes of status take place during RMA Credit Memo activity.
You can manually interrupt the RMA process at any time by changing the header status to Stopped. Credit cannot be issued for any line items associated with a header status of Stopped.
When all line items have been closed, the status of the header can be changed to History. Changing the status of the header automatically changes the status of all line items to History as well. You can delete history files which you no longer want to see included in current reports, using the Purge History RMAs utility.