Returns are where inventory and money touch, which makes them the part of the month your bookkeeper most needs and least often gets. A good reconciliation packet is short. It answers three questions and shows its working.
The three questions
What came back and was recovered? Units restocked or otherwise resolved, with their value. This is stock that returned to the balance sheet.
What came back and was lost? Units written off as damaged or missing, with their value and a note. This is the month's returns-related shrinkage, and it belongs in the accounts as such.
What is still open? Returns not yet received or decided, with their age. This is the number that will move next month, and the bookkeeper needs to know it is unresolved rather than absent.
The structure
A one-page summary with those three totals, then a matrix by cause: refunded-never-restocked, open returns, confirmed losses, and any restock-integrity issues, each split into recovered, written off, and open. Then the decision detail: every resolve or write-off made in the month, with order, item, value, date and note.
Period boundaries should be explicit, and consistent. Month in UTC, say, so the packet for August is the same set of days every year.
What makes it useful rather than decorative
- Every figure derives from a recorded decision, not an estimate. The bookkeeper can trace a line back to an order.
- Write-off notes are present. "Damaged in transit" and "customer kept item" are different problems.
- The open balance is carried forward, so nothing falls between months.
- It arrives on a schedule, from the system, not from a person who might be on holiday.
Getting it out the door
If you keep the monthly checklist we described, this packet is its output. Total the three lines, list the decisions, and send it on the same day each month. If the bookkeeper is a second person, the packet is also what keeps them from having to ask.
StockReclaim's Growth plan produces this packet as a PDF and emails it to a second recipient automatically each month, from the same decisions log the merchant sees. See plans and billing.