AWRA Help Center

Open Procurement → Purchase Orders and choose Returns & debit notes in the row of links at the top of the page. The screen lists your returns and your debit notes, with two buttons: Return goods and Debit note without a return.

Returning Goods

1. Press Return goods. To return against an order, pick it under Return against a purchase order and press Use this order; its supplier and items fill in, and the VAT rate is suggested from that order’s bills.
2. Choose the supplier, the return date (today or earlier), the warehouse and location the goods leave from, the VAT rate the supplier charged, and why they are going back.
3. Add the items and whole-unit quantities. Leave the unit cost empty to use the order price, or the item’s average cost when there is no order. For a serial-tracked item, name the units going back.
4. Press Save return. It is saved as a draft you can still edit or cancel.
5. Press Approve — goods have left. The stock comes out of the warehouse and location, the serial numbers are marked as returned to the supplier, and a debit note is raised in the same step. A return against an order also re-runs that order’s three-way match.

What A Return Checks

• Against an order: every item must be on that order, and you can return no more than was received on it and not already returned.
• Without an order: the item must have been bought from that supplier before — on one of their orders or bills.
• Stock on hand: the warehouse and location must hold the quantity at approval.
• Serial numbers: you can name up to as many serials as units, never more.
• A second approver, if you want one: under Settings → Procurement Defaults, switch on A supplier return needs a second person to approve it. Then whoever prepared a return cannot approve it. It is off by default, for small teams where one person does both.
• A user tied to one warehouse returns from that warehouse only.

Debit Notes Without A Return

For a price agreed down after billing, a short-delivery credit or a rebate, press Debit note without a return. Enter the supplier, what it is for (price adjustment or other), the amount the supplier owes back including VAT — as on their credit note — and how much of it is VAT, the date, an optional purchase order, the account to credit, and a reason. Press Raise debit note.

What Posts To The Ledger

• A return is approved: Dr Accounts payable for the gross value; Cr Inventory at what the stock cost (its average cost); Cr Input tax for the VAT part. If the agreed price differs from the stock cost, the difference goes to Purchase price variance, so the inventory account keeps agreeing with the stock valuation.
• A debit note without a return: Dr Accounts payable gross; Cr the account you chose (Purchases unless you choose another) for the net; Cr Input tax for the VAT.
• The note is set against a bill: nothing posts. The payable already fell when the note was raised; applying it only reduces what that bill still owes, so the same credit cannot be taken twice.
• The supplier refunds it: Dr the account the money was received into (Bank unless you choose another), Cr Accounts payable.

Using The Credit

1. Open the debit note.
2. Under Set against a bill, choose one of that supplier’s open bills and an amount — up to whichever is smaller, what is left on the note or what the bill still owes — and press Apply. A note can be split across several bills.
3. If the supplier has no open bill and pays you back instead, use Record the supplier’s refund with the amount received, the account it went into and a reference.

You do not have to apply notes by hand before paying. A payment run counts the supplier’s open credit against their bills, pays only the rest in cash, and applies the notes when the run is paid.

Undoing

• A draft return can be cancelled; nothing has moved.
• An approved return can be reversed — the supplier refused it, or the quantity was wrong. The goods come back into stock where they left and the debit note is cancelled with its journal reversed. This is refused once the note has been applied or refunded; undo that first.
• A debit note without a return can be cancelled while nothing has been applied or refunded; its journal is reversed. A note raised by a return is undone by reversing the return.

Permissions

Returns and debit notes share one permission, Manage supplier returns: viewing, preparing, approving, reversing, raising notes, applying and refunding. Use the second-approver setting above if preparing and approving should be two people.

Common Mistakes

• Approving before the goods leave. Approval takes the stock out; approve when the goods are on their way back.
• Entering a debit note net of VAT. The amount is what the supplier owes back including VAT, and the VAT part is entered separately.
• Raising a note and paying the bill in full anyway. Apply the note, or pay through a payment run, which offsets it for you.

Related

• Supplier Bills — the bills a debit note is set against.
• Payment Runs — pays the balance after the supplier’s credit.
• Purchase Orders — the order and receipt a return is checked against.