When a customer returns or refunds an item, that unit is supposed to go back into sellable stock. Often it doesn't. The order looks handled, but your admin now shows stock that isn't really there.
A returns audit reads your last 60 days of refunds and returns and finds every case where a unit left a sale but never came back. There are four:
The four exceptions
- Refunded, never restocked. A refund was issued with the Restock box left unchecked. The most common leak.
- Return open, no decision. A return has been started but nobody has recorded a restock or write-off yet. It ages in limbo.
- Confirmed loss. A return was dispositioned as damaged or missing. A real, accounted-for loss.
- Restock claimed, stock unchanged. A restock was recorded, by a person or a returns app, but the count never actually moved.
Why it matters
Each one is priced in dollars and aged, so you can see how much is sitting unrecovered and for how long. Nothing is guessed: we report where the record and the adjustment disagree, not what is physically on the shelf.
A clean week is a result, not an absence. When everything reconciled, that is worth being told too.
This is our first post. More to come.