Credit notes
Overview
You can use credit notes to refund customers and return goods back into stock.
Customers can only be credited back the amount in the sales order for the item they have returned. This prevents you from over-crediting your customers.
You can also Return and Exchange. products from a sales order or POS Returns.
Create a credit note
Credits can be created at any time from the Credit Notes module.
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From the left navigation select Sales, then select the Credit Notes module.
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Select New Credit Note.
Enter the customer in the customer details fields.
Enter the product you wish to credit.
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Notice that the quantity is negative. This means the stock will be returned to the system.
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Enter a Sales reference, Completed date, and Credit Note Date to complete the Credit Note.
By entering a Credit Note Date, the Credit Note will be made available for import into your accounting software. -
Finally, for your own reference, enter in a Payment Type at the bottom of the screen.
Select Approve and Save from the following page to save Credit Note
Which payment type to choose depends on how you will refund the customer. Here are a few possible scenarios:
No payment required
Perhaps you've exchanged faulty items for new goods. Please see Return and Exchange for an explanation of how best to do this.
If this means that no money needs to be refunded, choose No Payment Required.
To be refunded
If you intend to return the money owed to the customer via a bank transfer, then enter To Be Refunded as the payment type. Import the Credit Note into your accounting software and arrange payments from there.
Cash or card: You may wish to return money to the customer directly using cash from an available register - in which case the payment type will need to be set so that the Close Register process tallies the correct totals. If you do this, select a payment type like Cash or Card, but remember to remove the invoice date from the transaction - this will allow the amount to be removed from the Register Totals.
On Account:If you extend credit to a customer, you could simply mark the credit as On Account. By importing to your account software, the credit will be offset against other outstanding invoices on the customer's account; and their monthly Statement will only show their outstanding balance.
Create a credit note from a sales order
It is possible to automatically create a credit from an existing Sales Order.
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In the Sales, Sales Order module, hover over the cog icon of an order you’d like to credit then select Admin.
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Select Actions, and select Create Credit Note from Sales
In the window that appears enter the quantity of items to be transferred, or alternatively choose Select All.
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Select Create Credit Note from selected Products, which will create a Credit Note with selected Items.
Add a Payment Type (to be refunded) to the created Credit Note, then select Approve and Save from the following page.
Notice that the sales related to the credited items are linked in the 'Linked Transactions' grid at the bottom of the screen.
Important - if you choose to use this method the COGS will be drawn from the related Sales Order, as opposed to the last cost. Therefore creating a Credit Note by this method is a much more accurate way of creating a credit.
Credit notes for items that don't return to inventory
There may be occasions where you need to credit a customer, but you do not receive stock back into your inventory.
First, follow the steps above to complete a credit note in the usual way.
Once a Completed Date has been entered the Qty Moved column will pre-populate with values. You now need to go back into this column and make a few changes.
Select the Qty Moved column for products that have not been received back into stock.
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Delete the line items by selecting the 'x' at the end of each row.
Select Save.
You can now Save the entire transaction.
Notice that the dollar total of the Credit remains the same, but the quantity of stock returned to the inventory has been reduced.
Faulty goods
If you have received stock when crediting a customer and you later decide those items are faulty, you can use a stock adjustment to write off the stock.
To create an Adjustment:
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From the left navigation choose Stock and then select Adjustments
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Select New Inventory Adjustments
In the transaction enter the product you want to write off, and enter a negative quantity to reduce the inventory
The dollar total of the adjustment should be negative
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To complete the Adjustment, enter a Completed date, and a date to adjust to your accounting software
In your accounting software, the adjustment will become your journal, which will credit your stock on hand account, and debit your default expense account.
FAQs
Are Payments in Cin7 Omni imported to my accounting software?
Payments in Cin7 Omni are for your reference only. We do not import anything in the payment field into your accounting integration.
How do COGS work with Credit Notes?
Once a Credit Note has been completed and imported into your accounting software, the COGS will generate the goods in the Credit Note. For a standard Credit Note, using the perpetual accounting method, the COGS account will be reduced by the value of the related goods, and the inventory account increased by the same value.
In my old system we set up an item called 'Faulty Products' - should I do the same here?
Please don’t be tempted to create a new product called 'Faulty Products'. It makes it very difficult to get the costs accurate if you do this.