Rental Return

The document recording equipment coming back into your yard at the end of the rental period. Created from a Rental Order, then posted when the equipment physically returns.

How it fits in

A Rental Return is the mirror image of a Rental Shipment. Where a Shipment records equipment leaving your yard against a Rental Order, a Return records it coming back. The Order is what charges happened against; the Return closes the loop on the physical fleet movement.

Returns come in two states. While you're preparing a return (deciding which lines are coming back, in what quantities, into which bin) it's a Rental Return Order: editable, queued, not yet recorded. Once the equipment is in and checked you Post the return, which freezes it as a Posted Return Order: immutable, with line-level traceability back to the originating Rental Order.

A single Rental Order can produce several Returns over the rental period (you might receive some equipment back early, the rest later). Each Return carries its own header and lines, all linked back to the same Rental Order via the Linked to Rental Order No. field.

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A Rental Return is distinct from BC's standard Sales Return. The Rental Return is the working document for the equipment-coming-back flow specific to rentals; standard Sales Returns remain available for non-rental return flows.

How a Return Order gets created

As with Shipment, there are three paths to a new Rental Return Order:

Path 1: from the Rental Order lines subpage (most common). Open the Rental Order, select the line or lines you want to return on the Lines subpage, and use the Return action from the subpage's menu. A new Rental Return Order opens, prepopulated with just the selected lines.

Path 2: from the Rental Order header. Use the Create Return Order action on the Rental Order's ribbon. A new (empty) Rental Return Order opens; use Get Source Documents on the unposted Return Order to pull lines in from the originating Rental Order.

Path 3: standalone from the Return Orders list. Open the Rental Return Orders list, create a new Return Order from there, and use Get Source Documents to pull lines from one or more Rental Orders. Useful when you're consolidating a single return movement across multiple Rental Orders coming back to the same yard on the same day.

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Returning a kit: on Path 1, you only need to select the kit's parent line. The kit's component lines come back automatically alongside the parent.
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One-time Invoice Lines do not go through Return. Lines on the Rental Order's One-time Invoice Lines subpage (shipping charges, fuel, sundries) are not part of the Return flow because they were never shipped in the first place. Don't expect to see them on a Return Order.

Open vs Posted

Rental Return Order (open): editable. Used while you're preparing a return: deciding which lines are coming back, in what quantities, marking any as lost, assigning bins. Posting moves it to the next state.

Posted Return Order: immutable. The historical record of what came back, with each posted line carrying a link back to the originating Rental Line on the Rental Order. Used for traceability and for printing the Return Confirmation after the fact.

The two pages share the same FastTab layout (General and Return / Returns). Differences sit in the line columns, the available actions, and a small caption inconsistency on the address fields (see Header fields below).

Header fields (Open and Posted)

Same field set on both variants; on Posted, all fields are read-only.

General

General
No.required
Auto-assigned from the No. Series defined in Rental Setup. On the Posted variant, it's the posted document number from a separate posted-document No. Series.
Customer No.
The customer the equipment is coming back from. Inherited from the originating Rental Order.
Customer Name
Defaults from the Customer card via the Rental Order; editable on the open Return Order.
Posting Date
The date the return is posted to the ledger. Defaults to the work date on the open Return Order; locked on the Posted variant.
Linked to Rental Order No.
The Rental Order this Return is being posted against. Drives line-by-line traceability and is the way you navigate from a Posted Return back to the originating Order.
Project No.
Inherited from the Rental Order if the Order is linked to a Project.

Return / Returns (address fields)

The address fields point to where the equipment is coming back from. On the open Return Order they're labelled Return-from; on the Posted Return Order they're labelled Ship-to. Same data underneath; only the captions differ.

Return / Returns
Return Method Code (open) / Shipment Method Code (posted)
How the equipment is coming back (delivery, customer drop-off, courier collection). Inherited from the Rental Order's Shipment Method Code.
Return-from / Ship-to Contact
The named contact at the customer who is sending the equipment back.
Return-from / Ship-to Code
A named address registered against the customer where the return is coming from.
Return-from / Ship-to Name, Name 2
The sender name on the return manifest.
Return-from / Ship-to Address, Address 2, City, County, Post Code
The actual return-from address. Inherited from the Rental Order's Ship-to fields; editable on the open Return Order if the address differs for this specific return.

FactBoxes (right-side panel)

Both the open and posted Return pages show the Attachments, Links, and Notes FactBoxes in the right-side panel. Attachments holds document files (including photos); Links holds record links to related pages or URLs; Notes holds free-text notes against the document.

The Lines section (Open)

Lines on the open Return Order are the equipment items queued to come back. As with Shipment lines, each carries a Quantity (the total this line represents), a Quantity to Return (how much you're going to receive in this posting), and a Quantity Returned (how much has already been received against this line). The Lost flag handles equipment that isn't physically coming back.

Open Return Lines
Line Type
What the line represents: Item, Rental Item, Rental Item Type, Resource, etc. Inherited from the originating Rental Order line.
No.
The identifier of the item, type, or resource being returned.
Description, Description 2
Inherited from the source line on the Rental Order; editable on the open Return Order if you need to annotate the return specifically (damage notes, condition observations).
Location
The location (depot, yard) the equipment is being returned to.
Quantity
The total quantity this line represents from the Rental Order.
Lost
When ticked, the line is treated as lost rather than received back. Use when the customer reports equipment lost or destroyed; lost lines close the rental obligation without physically receiving the equipment into stock.
Quantity to Return
How much you're going to receive in the next Post action. Defaults to whatever's left to return; reduce it when you're only receiving part now.
Quantity Returned
How much has already been received against this line in earlier postings. Read-only.
Bin
The bin the equipment is being put away into. Defaults from the line's Location, but can be overridden if you're putting it somewhere non-default.
Container, Sub Container
Optional grouping fields for warehouses that organise stock into containers within bins.

The Lines section (Posted)

Posted Return lines are read-only. Similar to the open lines but the Quantity-to-Return / Returned pair collapses to a single Quantity (the amount actually returned at posting time), and two trace-back fields appear:

Posted Return Lines
Line Type, No., Description, Description 2
As recorded at the moment of posting; immutable.
Location, Bin, Container
Where the equipment was put away at posting time.
Quantity
The quantity actually returned in this posting (was Quantity to Return at the moment of posting).
Linked to Rental Order
The Rental Order document number this posted line came from. Together with Linked to Rental Line, gives you exact traceability from a Posted Return back to the originating Rental Order line.
Linked to Rental Line
The line number on the originating Rental Order.

Walkthrough: returning a partial quantity

A common case: a Rental Order shipped 10 units; the customer is returning 6 today and keeping the rest for another week. Walkthrough uses Path 1 (line-subpage Return); the same logic applies on the other paths.

1
Select the line on the Rental Order

Open the Rental Order, find the line for the item in question on the Lines subpage, and select it. (For kits or structured types, select the parent line; the components come with it.)

2
Use Return from the line menu

Open the Lines subpage's action menu and use Return. A new Rental Return Order opens, prepopulated with the selected line. Quantity to Return defaults to the full outstanding shipped quantity (10 units in this example).

3
Reduce Quantity to Return to what's actually coming back

On the Return Order's Lines, set Quantity to Return to 6. Quantity stays at 10 (that's what shipped); Quantity to Return is just what this posting will record.

4
Post the Return

Use the Post Return action. The Return Order becomes a Posted Return Order recording 6 units returned. The originating Rental Line's Quantity Returned goes up by 6, and the line is now half-returned.

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Receive the rest later

When the remaining 4 units come back, repeat the process: select the line, Return, post. The Rental Line is now fully returned, and the rental period closes for this line.

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The document-level Return All action on the Rental Order ribbon does the same in one go for every line: it sets Quantity to Return to each line's outstanding quantity and posts. Use it when the whole order is coming back at once; use Path 1 (per-line Return) when receiving a partial.

Lost items

When equipment doesn't physically come back (customer lost it, damaged beyond repair, never returned), use the Lost flag on the Return line. Posting a return with Lost ticked closes the rental obligation for the lost quantity without receiving any stock back, and triggers downstream behaviour (customer charge, fixed-asset write-off, fleet status update) per your Rental Setup configuration.

The full Lost-handling process (when to use it, charge configuration, what happens to the underlying Rental Item record, financial impact) is covered in its own doc:

Cancelling a return

A posted Return can be cancelled from two places, depending on whether you want to cancel one line or several. Both paths reverse the posting via a corrective ledger entry rather than deleting the posted record.

Path 1: from the Rental Order line. Open the originating Rental Order, find the relevant line on the Lines subpage, and use the Cancel Return action from the line menu. The cancellation reverses the posting for that line, regardless of which Posted Return Order it was originally on. Quickest path when you know which Rental Order line is wrong.

Path 2: from the Posted Return Order. Open the Posted Return Order, select one or more lines you want to cancel on the Lines subpage, and use the Cancel Return action from the subform's line menu. Useful when you want to cancel specific lines out of a multi-line posted return without affecting the rest.

A document-level Cancel Document action on the Posted Return Order's ribbon (to cancel the whole posted Return in one go) is coming soon; for now, cancel by line using either path above.

Actions on the open Return Order

Get Source Documents: pull lines onto this Return Order from one or more Rental Orders. Useful when you're combining returns across multiple Orders coming back from the same customer on the same day.

Post Return: post the Return Order. Creates the Posted Return Order, updates the originating Rental Lines' Quantity Returned, and either receives the equipment back into stock or closes off the line as lost (if Lost was ticked). The open Return Order is consumed by the post.

Post and Print (coming soon): will post the Return and then immediately print the Return Confirmation. Not yet implemented; post with Post Return for now.

Post and Email (coming soon): will post the Return and then email the Return Confirmation to the customer. Not yet implemented; post with Post Return for now.

Actions on the Posted Return Order

Cancel Document (coming soon): a document-level reverse of the whole posted return. Not yet implemented. To cancel a posted return today, use the line-level Cancel Return actions instead (from the Rental Order line or the Posted Return Order lines, both covered above under Cancelling a return).

Print Return Confirmation (coming soon): will re-print the Return Confirmation for this posted return. Not yet implemented.

Line-level actions

On the Posted Return lines, one line-level action is available:

Cancel Return: cancel the posting of an individual posted line, rather than the whole return. Use when only one line was posted in error.

Related pages