How can I do a return without receipt?

[julzanimalhouz]

The title of this thread has been edited from the original: Return without receipt

As a retail store I sometimes need to return and/or exchange an item. Although we do have a policy that states returns are required we sometimes to do waive this policy and do the return without the receipt. How do I do a return when I don't have any idea what transaction the purchase was on? We typically enter a customers name/phone number and can find the transaction but there are times when we simply do not have that information. 

[#2]

Hi @paulmontaperto,

Thanks for writing back in to the seller community! 

You can look up transactions using the last four digits of the card your customer used in app, or via the dashboard. At the moment the workaround to issuing a refund as store credit, would be to refund the amount to a gift card. Take a look at this article to learn how to issue a refund onto a gift card. Please let us know how you go 🙂 

[katieand]

Hi @julzanimalhouz - If you're using Square Stand or POS, you can look up the transaction by entering the full card number or swiping the card. That should bring up the purchase history of that card with your business.

You can also look up transaction history with the last four digits of the card in your Dashboard.

[yolandas]

What if we don't have a card number either? The item was given as a gift.

[Kassi_]

Hi @yolandas - 

You can search the date or amount of the purchase to narrow it down on your Reports, since  you do not have the card number. 

[MichiganFarmsta]

Try doing this search when you have 300 to 500 transaction per day!  That is 20 transactions on a slow hour to over 60 on busy hour.  It is not practical to do

[ftbusiness]

I have this exact same question.  We are a small business (42 years in business) in a small town and we do get returns of items that the customer received as a gift.  We do not always know the giver's name, credit card information or the date it was purchased.  We will accept the return without receipt and they can use the value for store credit or gift card.  This type of customer service is key to small businesses like ours making it 42 years...especially with the online shopping that has taken over!   In addition, the item returned needs to be put back into inventory (without asking EVERY employee to go edit the items in inventory...dangerous!).  It seems at Checkout or under Transactions there should be an option to EXCHANGE without receipt so the item goes back to inventory, then issue/sell a "gift card" for the value or use value towards another item the customer chooses that day. 

[isabelle]

Hey @ftbusiness-

Thanks for adding some input into this thread, and congrats on your long-running business! 

Processing exchanges, and replenishing the inventory through the exchange is a feature we provide with Square for Retail, but not for standard Square POS, as it is primarily a retail feature.

I am sorry you're having a hard time locating the original transaction for the gift card purchases. I am trying to think of a workaround, but at the moment it would be difficult to locate the transaction without a name, date, or amount. I will make sure to follow up in this thread if I come up with anything. Thanks again for taking the time to contribute your thoughts on this. 

[MichiganFarmsta]

One thing that really bothers me about square. "Let me suggest a time consuming work around".  When I need to do an exchange or refund I often do not have a receipt or Credit Card!  And with 300 to 500 transactions per day, its tough to find a transaction from yesterday, let alone last week.

This is one place a cash register worked better than the Square point of sale. On a cash register I type in the amount, press the refund, and select the item.

[Scarpaalta]

We need to be able to search an item under transaction, it would be much easier to narrow down receipts that way. 

[SoulChic]

So, as already mentioned, the only way to do this is to give their customer the full price of the item, even if the gift giver didn’t pay full price for it (sale, discount code, etc.) and then manually add it back in inventory. Also mentioned is the problem of letting employees edit inventory, but also we could be refunding/exchanging for more than what was paid.

Also, we are a “green store” and contactless, so no paper receipts. So gift givers don’t have an option for a gift receipt! Ugh.  

[LQBS]

Please add the exchange/return  feature to square stand POS system. This would be extremely helpful as we expand our businesses to try and survive during this difficult time. 
thank you

[MagicToybox]

We shouldn't have to do research to find a transaction to return. In my case, the product was purchased from an old POS and there is no transacton history. I just want to take the old product back - give purchase value and add product back to inventory, and apply refunded value to new purchase value. Why is that not a basic function? 

[Abigails_stl]

Has anyone figured this out yet? We have too many transactions to go through every single one to find the one for the return. We are a gift store, but many customers do not give the gift receipts we offer and when someone brings one if for a return, there is no way to refund the money through the system. Even with the new search feature of looking up by item. We sold over 300 of one item this year... not going be able to narrow that down. There should just be a button on the the main screen "Return/Exchange" that works the reverse of a sale. This is my biggest complaint with Square for Retail. All other systems we have used in the past had this feature. 

[AudreyP]

Absolutely!  I have NEVER used a POS system without this functionality.  Hey Square, where are you guys on this?  You do updates aaaaallll the time.  Why not this one?

[mjmathias]

We need a simpler way to return or exchange items without going into the transactions tab. The transaction recall is neat and useful but a basic return/exchange option is needed. 

[JustinC]

Only way is though transactions for now. Sorry about that. @mjmathias

[Abigails_stl]

This is pretty unacceptable... The complaints on this stretch back to 2018, and that's just on this thread. I realize that Square for Retail isn't the largest chunk of your business and most trouble shooting time goes to issues for restaurants, but come on. This doesn't seem like it is a hard problem to solve... Snap Retail and NCR Silver literally have a button on the front screen that says "return/exchange".  No looking up customers, no looking up items. Its super simple and a big time saver.  I changed over to Square because all of your products are integrated, which is nice, but I was also told that Square is responsive to complaints and fixes issues. Please please fix this.

[jacdzg2]

I agree!!!!! SOOOO FRUSTRATING!!!!!

[MagicToybox]

After recently switching to Square from a previous POS provider, I was disappointed to find that I cannot process a product return without a Square transaction history. Processing a return for any reason, should be a straight-forward, quick, painless process for a customer and the cashier, and should not be dependent on a transaction history. Being able to credit a return against a transaction is a desirable feature, but it is not necessary or the priority when processing the return. There are many situations where a return may be warranted without needing to find the exact transaction. 

-Returns should be allowable for any item that the store deems fit, regardless of recorded transaction: Returns from another location, quality guarantees, returns from old processors, and customer service issues, etc. This allows the retailer to be flexible and accommodating. 

Workflow: 

RETURN Button on main checkout screen,

Return window opens: scan receipt or item

-If receipt scans current return window is perfect (Return All, or select item) 

-If item is scanned, display lowest price in last 30-days. Allow for price to be overridden with manager code. 

After all items scanned option for Refund or Exchange should appear

-Refund should present with available options: cash out by original payment, Cash, gift card credit

-Warning should appear 

-Exchange should present with cart screen showing the return value. 

Return Exchange options should be able to be adjusted by manager in settings: Which users have permission to process returns, allowable to give refund without receipt with manager code, Time period for returns with receipt, Dollar amount allowable without manager approval.

[_Violet]

Hi @MagicToybox 👋 I went ahead and merged your post to an existing thread where other Square Sellers have discussed processing a return without an original transaction.

Thank you for adding to this Request. In order to appropriately send these to our product teams, we’d love it if you'd submit this request on our Feature Request page for Square for Retail.

Our team monitors these boards and we triage them to measure need. You can search the boards to see if this has been requested before and add your use case if so.

We appreciate your input!

[rse_tc]

Could you possibly post a link to that existing thread? We've just started using Square and have run into this same issue. Thanks!