Returns and collections at the POS

Taking things back and refunding them over the counter, and handing over click and collect orders: what to check and what the POS will refuse.

Take a return and refund it

Needs the permission Refund orders.

Tap Return. You can take back anything the shop sold, at the counter or online, whichever shop or POS it came from.

The person serving needs Refund orders on their role, the same permission as refunds in the dashboard. Without it the Return screen says, for example, Maria Georgiou can't give refunds. Ask somebody who can to take over the POS. They can still find the order and show what is on it, but the refund button stays greyed out. Somebody who can refund taps Done serving, says who they are and finishes the return.

Take care: The built-in Shop floor role does not have Refund orders. If you want floor staff to take returns at the POS, give their role Refund orders in Roles.

1. Find the order. Scan the item the customer brought back, or type the number on their receipt, their surname or their email address, and tap Find. The number can be the order reference or, for a sale taken while the POS was offline, the OFF- number.
2. The POS lists the paid orders that match, newest first, with the date and the customer’s name, and receipt with the OFF- number for a sale taken offline. Tap the right one.
3. For each item coming back, tap + until the number is right. Each line says how many are still left to return.
4. For each item, choose why it is coming back from Why is it coming back?: Faulty, Arrived damaged, Wrong item sent, Not as described, Does not fit, Changed their mind, Arrived too late or Something else. These are the same reasons the online returns form offers, and every item needs one before you can refund.
5. For each item, leave Back on the shelf on if it can be sold again. Turn it off for anything damaged or unsellable.
6. Check the amount under To refund.
7. Choose how the money goes back, if the POS asks (see below).
8. Optionally type anything else worth knowing in Anything to add?. It is kept with the refund.
9. Tap Refund and the amount.
10. Give the customer their money back (see below). The POS confirms how much was refunded and how many items went back on the shelf.

A refund is worked out from what the customer paid for each item, not from today’s price, and after any discount they had. Each item shows what one of them refunds; when a discount made it less than the price on the label, the label price is shown underneath, for example €45.00 with €50.00 before discount. The last of an item refunds exactly what is left of what was paid for it, so an item refunded in parts adds up to the cent: three that cost €10.00 together refund €3.33, €3.33 and €3.34. When all of them together come to a cent more or less than the figure times the count, the item also says what All of them refund. The amount under To refund is exactly what the refund pays.

An online order that was posted can be brought back to the shop too. The delivery charge, any gift wrapping and any cash on delivery fee are kept, except when everything that was posted is coming back. Then the refund adds them: within 14 days of delivery, the cost of the shop’s cheapest standard delivery (never more than they paid for it), all of the gift wrapping and all of the cash on delivery fee; when every item is Faulty, Arrived damaged, Wrong item sent or Not as described, all of them whenever it comes back, express delivery included. Under To refund the POS lists each one, for example Items €50.00, plus delivery €4.50 — the whole order came back within the 14-day cancellation period, plus gift wrapping €3.00 — … and plus cash on delivery fee €2.00 — …, or says what is kept and why, for example Delivery, gift wrapping and the cash on delivery fee kept: only part of the order came back. The 14 days are the legal ones, even when the shop’s own returns window is longer. None of them is ever refunded twice, and the reasons you pick are remembered: an item taken back earlier as Changed their mind means the order did not come back faulty as a whole.

Any loyalty points the sale earned are taken back off the customer’s account automatically.

Take care: A refund cannot be undone from the POS. Check the items, the quantities and the amount before you tap Refund.

Tip: Not sure which order an item came from? Scan it on Look up first. When this one was sold lists every sale of it with the date, the price paid and whether any have already been refunded.

How the money goes back

Needs the permission Refund orders.

The money goes back the way it was paid. If the order was paid one way, the POS says so, for example Going back by cash. If it was split, it shows a button for each payment, such as Back by cash and Back by card, with the amount paid each way. Tap the one the money is going back through.

• Cash: hand the money over from the drawer. The POS takes it off what should be in the drawer, under Cash refunds on the Drawer screen.
• Card, for a sale made at the counter: the POS only records the refund. Put the refund through on the card machine yourself.
• An online order paid by card on the website (it shows the payment company’s name, for example stripe): the money goes back to the customer’s card automatically when you tap Refund. Tell the customer it can take a few days to appear.
• Gift card, for an order paid wholly or partly with one: the money goes back on the same gift card straight away when you tap Refund. Nothing is handed over, and the customer can spend it again at once. The card’s history in Gift cards and the order’s timeline both show it, the timeline naming the card by its last four characters.

A gift card only takes back what it paid towards that order. If you try to refund more than that to the card, the POS refuses and says how much was paid by gift card and not already put back; refund the rest another way. If the card has been cancelled since, the POS refuses with The gift card that paid for this has been cancelled, so nothing can go back on it. Refund it another way.

Other refusals say exactly what is wrong, for example That is more than is left to refund on this order. or how much has been paid and not yet refunded. Nothing has been refunded when the POS says one of these; change the items or the amount and try again.

The customer’s refund email says where the money went: back on their gift card (by its last four characters), waiting in cash at the shop, or back on their card.

Take care: On a split sale, pick the right payment. A cash refund recorded as card, or the other way round, leaves the drawer impossible to balance at the end of the day.

Returns window and refusals

Needs the permission Use the POS.

If the order is older than the shop’s returns window (set in Returns), the POS warns Outside the returns window. You can still take it back. It is recorded on the refund as taken back outside the window, so it is a decision somebody made, not a mistake.

• That order was cancelled, so there is nothing to take back.
• Everything on that order has already been refunded.
• A line that says Already refunded in full. cannot be taken back again.
• No paid order found for what you typed: only paid orders can be returned. Try another way of finding it.

While an order is open on the Return screen, scanning something else is ignored so the return in progress is not lost, and the POS says Finish or cancel this return first. To abandon the return, tap Cancel return beside the order reference. Nothing has been refunded or put back on the shelf yet, so nothing is lost; the screen clears, ready for the next scan.

A sale made while the POS was offline gets a normal order reference once it reaches the server, and keeps its OFF- number. Either one finds it. It can only be found once the POS that took it has sent it: if it cannot be found, check that POS register for sales still waiting to send (see Offline, printers and the customer screen).

Exchanges

Needs the permission Use the POS.

A customer can swap what they bought for something else in one go, on the Return screen.

1. On Return, find the order and choose how many of each item are coming back, and why, as for a refund.
2. Press Exchange instead. The other sizes and colours of what is coming back are shown with how many you have: tap one to add it. For something else, scan it or search for it.
3. Check the summary: what is coming back, what is going out, and the difference.
4. When the new items cost less, choose where the difference goes, if the shop offers a choice: Back by how the order was paid, or On a gift card. For a gift card you can type the customer’s email address to send them the code.
5. Press the button. Exchange for an even swap. Take the difference when the new items cost more, then take payment as usual. Exchange and give back or Exchange and put … on a gift card when they cost less.

The screen then shows Exchanged with the new sale’s reference, and the receipt prints by itself on a POS register with a printer. The receipt lists what came back (with the original order and its date), what went out, and the difference. Print it again with Print receipt again, or later from the new sale like any other receipt.

A gift card’s code is shown on the Exchanged screen only. Read it out or write it down before tapping Next customer: the receipt shows only its last four characters, because anyone holding the code can spend it. If you typed an email address, the code is emailed too.

What comes back goes back on this shop’s shelf (unless you switch Back on the shelf off), and what goes out comes off it. The new sale is its own order, paid partly or wholly by exchange; the original order shows the items as exchanged, not refunded, and the customer is not emailed a refund. A difference given back, as money or on a gift card, needs the Refund orders permission; an even swap, or one the customer pays towards, does not.

Whether a gift card is offered, and which choice the POS has picked before anybody touches it, are set in the dashboard under Settings → Returns → Exchanges at the POS.

Tip: New items go out at their shelf price. To give a discount, refund instead and ring the new items up on Sell.

When something bought in an exchange comes back later, the part the exchange paid for goes back on a gift card, never as money: no money came in for it. The Return screen says so where it would say how the money goes back, and shows the card’s code once afterwards: read it out or write it down. Any part they paid on top by card or cash goes back that way as usual.

Hand over a click and collect order

Needs the permission Use the POS.

Tap Collect. The screen lists the orders waiting at this shop, with the customer’s name, the order reference, how many items, how many days are left to collect, and the total. Only this shop’s orders are shown.

1. Ask the customer for their surname or order reference. Type it in Reference or surname and tap Find, or just find them in the list.
2. Tap Collect on their order.
3. Read the sentence the POS shows. It tells you what to check and the name and order number to check against.
4. Check the customer’s photo ID, or the order email on their phone.
5. Type what you checked, for example "Driving licence" or "Order email on phone".
6. Fetch the bag and tap Hand it over.

If the shop has turned on Make staff say what they checked in Click and collect settings, Hand it over stays greyed out until you type something. Otherwise the note is optional, but it is the only record that the right person took the parcel.

A handed-over order stays on the list for an hour, marked as collected, then drops off.

Tip: Orders past their collection date are still handed over. The shop is still holding them, so the customer gets their parcel.

Prepare a collection order

Needs the permission Fulfil orders.

An order that has not been bagged yet shows Not ready yet. Fetch these, bag them, then mark it ready — that emails the customer to come. with the list of items to pick from the shelf. The red number on the Collect button counts these orders.

1. Pick each item on the list from the shelf.
2. Bag them and put the bag where collections are kept.
3. Tap Bagged — mark it ready.
4. The POS says Marked ready. The customer has been emailed. The order can now be handed over.

Marking an order ready takes the items off this shop’s stock and emails the customer to come and collect.

The Bagged — mark it ready button only appears if the person serving has the Fulfil orders permission on their role. Without it the POS says, where the button would be, that they can’t prepare orders for collection and should ask somebody who can to take over the POS. The order can also be prepared from Click and collect in the dashboard.

When a collection cannot be handed over

Needs the permission Use the POS.

The POS shows the reason on the order itself, before you go to the shelf:

• This order has not been paid for. Take payment before handing it over. Do not hand it over. The POS cannot take payment for an online order, so ask a manager.
• This order has already been collected.
• This order was cancelled, so there is nothing to hand over.
• That order is waiting at a different shop. The customer chose another branch.

Take care: Handing over an unpaid order gives the goods away. If the customer says they will pay in the shop, the POS cannot record that; ask a manager.

If nothing matches the search, the POS says Nothing waiting here for what you typed. If the list is empty it says Nothing is waiting to be collected at this shop.