RMA lifecycle

Elevate plan

A return order moves through 11 statuses. Eight form a forward chain you’ll walk most of the time; three (On Hold, Rejected, Cancelled) are side states for pauses, supplier refusals, and your own do-overs. Every status — including the “terminal” ones — has at least one back-edge you can use to fix a mistake.

On this page

• The 11 statuses
• Forward flow
• Backward moves
• Dated columns
• What you can edit by status
• How the status stepper renders the 11 statuses
• What cancellation does
• See also

The 11 statuses

Status	What it means	Goes back to
Draft	You’re composing the RMA. No supplier-side effect.	—
Pending Approval	Submitted but not yet approved.	Draft
Approved	Approved (by you or by your supplier, depending on flow).	Pending Approval
In Transit	The goods are en route to the supplier.	Approved
Received by Supplier	The supplier confirmed receipt.	In Transit
Inspection Complete	The supplier inspected the goods.	Received by Supplier
Resolved	The credit (or replacement) is finalised.	Inspection Complete
Closed	The RMA is closed for the books.	Resolved
On Hold	Paused.	The status you were in before (via Resume)
Rejected	The supplier (or your team) rejected the return.	Pending Approval
Cancelled	Cancelled.	Draft

Notably:

• No “Disputed” status (unlike POs).
• No status is a one-way street. Closed, Rejected, and Cancelled all have a single corrective back-edge so you can fix mistakes without recreating the RMA.
• Cancelled wipes forward-progress dates. See the dated-columns section below.

Forward flow

Draft → Pending Approval → Approved → In Transit → Received by Supplier → Inspection Complete → Resolved → Closed

From most in-flight statuses you can also branch sideways to On Hold (and resume back) or Cancelled.

Backward moves

Every status except Draft has at least one back-edge. Use these to correct mistakes:

• Pending Approval → Draft
• Approved → Pending Approval
• In Transit → Approved
• Received by Supplier → In Transit
• Inspection Complete → Received by Supplier
• Resolved → Inspection Complete
• Closed → Resolved
• Rejected → Pending Approval
• Cancelled → Draft
• On Hold → previous status (via Resume)

Note

A back-edge fixes the status. It does not unsend an email, unvoid a credit, or reverse an inventory move you made via the Move-inventory dialog — those are independent actions.

Dated columns

Each forward transition stamps a corresponding date — approved date, shipped date, supplier-received date, inspection-completed date, resolved date, closed date. Going on hold stamps an on-hold date; resuming stamps a resumed date; rejecting stamps a rejected date.

Cancelling clears only the forward-progress dates (approved, shipped, supplier-received, inspection-completed, resolved). It does not clear the cancelled date, the on-hold date, the resumed date, or the rejected date — and it does not touch the activity log.

Caution

Clearing the forward dates is destructive for audit. If you cancel an RMA, you lose the original timeline as visible columns. The activity log preserves the full history, but reports that read the columns directly will look as if those steps never happened.

What you can edit by status

Mutability falls into three groups.

Fully editable — Draft, Pending Approval. Add or remove line items, change any quantity field, edit the header (supplier, location, reason, notes, costs). Issuing supplier credits isn’t typically meaningful yet because the goods haven’t been received.

In-flight — Approved, In Transit, Received by Supplier, Inspection Complete, Resolved, On Hold. You can:

• Edit any quantity field (requested, approved, shipped, received, cancelled, taken) at any time. The backend doesn’t gate quantity edits by status.
• Edit the header (supplier, location, notes, cost fields, etc.).
• Add new line items only in Pending Approval (so for the in-flight statuses: no).
• Remove line items in Approved and On Hold (not in In Transit, Received by Supplier, Inspection Complete, or Resolved).
• Issue a single-line credit starting at Received by Supplier (gated to Received by Supplier, Inspection Complete, and Resolved).
• Issue Individual or Grouped credits at any time, though they only make practical sense once goods are in motion or received.

Locked — Closed, Rejected, Cancelled. No edits. To make changes, use the corrective back-edge (Closed → Resolved, Rejected → Pending Approval, Cancelled → Draft) and edit from there.

How the status stepper renders the 11 statuses

The detail page’s status stepper shows the 8 forward statuses as a horizontal flow: Draft → Pending → Approved → In Transit → Received → Inspected → Resolved → Closed. The three side states (On Hold, Rejected, Cancelled) don’t appear as steps — when one is active, it shows as a coloured badge next to the stepper (amber for On Hold, red for Rejected and Cancelled). This is intentional, not a missing step.

What cancellation does

• The status moves to Cancelled.
• Forward-progress dates are cleared (see above).
• Issued credits are not automatically voided. Void them separately if you want them gone.
• Inventory moves performed via the Move-inventory dialog are not reversed.
• The activity log still records the cancellation and preserves the prior history.

To pick the RMA back up, transition Cancelled → Draft and edit from there.

See also

• Issuing supplier credits — the three credit-mint paths.
• Quick actions (fast-forward) — skipping intermediate statuses.
• Move inventory — manually moving taken-back stock to a location.

Last updated: 20 May 2026