Controlling Material Returns

As you work with your vendors and customers to return products you consider overstock, you may find that you have products that your vendors will not allow you to return.

Eclipse provides tools to help you manage your material returns and eliminate pull all returns back into your warehouse. You can work with your vendors to make sure that items they consider non-returnable do not get sent back to them and with your customers so they do not return material that you consider dead stock.

Set the product parameters to reflect the warehouse rules you follow.
Assign the authorization keys to the appropriate personnel.
Use the Returned Goods Queue and Returned Goods Verification to process the material.
Use the Sales Order Entry Status tab to mark returned material received.
For customer inventory returns, see Handling Multiple Item Customer Returns in Sales Order Entry.

Note: If a customer who is on credit hold orders a non-stock item, the system displays an error on the Suggested P/O Report by the item alerting the purchasing agent. This alert can help keep your warehouse free of non-stock items ordered that may not get paid for.

To set product parameters:

From the Maintenance menu, select Product and enter the product you want to set as non-returnable.
From the Inventory menu, select Primary Inventory Maintenance to display the Primary Inventory Maintenance dialog box.
From the Edit menu, select User Controls to display the Product User Control Parameters dialog box.
Use the View Manager and select Product Returns.
For each branch, use the following columns to indicate how to handle a return for the selected product:

Option	Description
Vendor Return Allowed	Indicate if your vendor accepts returns for the item and define how to manage return goods allowance numbers depending on if your vendor requires them. Options include: Always - Product is always allowed to be returned. Never - Users can enter returns but need additional authorization to process a return. Users must have both the SOE.ALLOW.NONRETURN and SOE.RETURN.PROCESS authorization keys to process a credit return. RGA - Requires a return goods authorization number to be entered for the return product. A warning message displays when the RGA Number is required on the Returned Goods Verification window. Users must have the SOE.RGA.REQUIRED authorization key assigned to process a credit generation without having an RGA number defined for the product being returned.
Customer Return Allowed	Indicate if you accept returns for the product into the warehouse. Define how you want to handle returns for this product: Always - Product is always allowed to be returned. Never - Product is never allowed to be returned without authorization. Users cannot enter a negative sales order for the product without the SOE.ALLOW.NONRETURN authorization key. This keeps much tighter control over the products you do not want to return to inventory because they are obsolete or have newer models or you are no longer stocking on a regular basis. Users must have both the SOE.ALLOW.NONRETURN and SOE.RETURN.PROCESS authorization keys to process a credit return. Defective - Users can return items, but are limited to the three defective return types: F-Defective, R-Review, and O-Overship.
Economic Amount	Decide if returning an item to your general inventory when returned from a customer, is cost effective. For more information, see Determining the Economic Return Amount.

Save your changes and close the product record.

To assign authorization keys for returning products:

From the System > System Files > User Control menu, select User Maintenance to display the User Maintenance window.
In the User field, enter the user ID to whom you want to assign return authorization.
From the Maintenance menu, select Authorization Keys to display the Authorization Key/Template Maintenance window.
Assign the following keys, as needed:

Key	Description
SOE.ALLOW.NONRETURN	Allows users to return material that has been designated as customer non-returnable in Product User Control Parameters.
SOE.NONRETURN.PROCESS	Allows users to process items for return that are marked as never returnable.
SOE.RETURN.PROCESS	Allows users to process credit sales orders.
SOE.RGA.REQUIRED	Allows users to process credit orders without entering an RGA#.

For more information about any of these authorization keys, see SOE Return Keys in the Authorization Keys documentation.

Save your changes and close the user's record.