Not all received goods are kept. Sometimes goods have to go back to the vendor, because they are wrong, damaged, or not what was needed. This piece is about returns to vendors in Odoo.
When goods go back to a vendor
A business returns goods to a vendor for various reasons: the goods are damaged or defective, they are the wrong goods, they do not meet the required specification, or there is some other reason the goods cannot be kept. Whatever the reason, returning goods to a vendor is a real situation that has to be handled, and handled properly, because returning goods affects both the inventory and the financial side of the purchase.
Why a return has to be handled properly
Returning goods to a vendor properly matters for two reasons. The first is inventory: the goods were received, so they are, or were, in the business's stock; when they go back to the vendor, that has to be reflected, the stock has to be reduced, because the goods are no longer the business's. If the return is not handled, the inventory records say the business has stock it has genuinely sent back. The second is the financial side: the business may have a vendor bill for the returned goods, or expect one, and a return affects what the business genuinely owes the vendor, the returned goods should not be paid for, or should be credited. A return handled properly keeps both the inventory and the financial side correct.
How returns to vendors work in Odoo
Odoo handles a return to a vendor as a recorded movement: the goods being sent back. The return reverses, in effect, the receipt, the goods that came in from the vendor go back out to the vendor, and that is recorded, so the inventory correctly reflects that the goods are no longer in stock. And, because the return is in the connected system, it connects to the financial side of the purchase, so the effect of the return on what the business owes the vendor can be handled correctly. Returning goods to a vendor in Odoo is, in essence, recording the goods going back, properly, so the inventory and the financial side both reflect it.
The value of handling returns in the connected system
The value of handling vendor returns within the connected Odoo system is that the return is handled coherently across the inventory and the financial side. The return reduces the stock and connects to the financial consequence in one connected process, rather than the return being a thing handled in inventory by hand and then separately reconciled in the accounts. A return handled in the connected system keeps everything correct, the stock, what the business owes, without separate manual reconciliation. A return handled outside the system, informally, tends to leave either the inventory or the financial side wrong.
The takeaway
Returns to vendors in Odoo handle the situation where received goods have to go back to a supplier, because they are wrong, damaged, or not what was needed. A return has to be handled properly because it affects both the inventory, the stock has to be reduced, and the financial side, what the business owes the vendor. Odoo handles a return as a recorded movement of the goods going back, connected to the financial side, so the return is handled coherently and both the inventory and the accounts stay correct. For how we approach Odoo, see our ERP practice.