We have all heard the saying that it is easier to retain a good customer than find a new one. In the current marketplace customers have choices, so the fastest way to lose a customer is to deliver a poor customer experience. One aspect of excellent customer service is a no-hassle return policy. If returns are efficiently managed, you can keep costs to a minimum while still keeping your customers happy. The Sage 300 ERP Return Materials Authorization (RMA) module helps you do just that.
What is it?
Return Material Authorizations (RMA) streamlines the management of product returns and repairs from within your Sage 300 system. Flexible workflows allow you to authorize customer returns, initiate replacement orders, issue credit notes, and return faulty goods to the vendor.
Once the return episode has been completed, cross-referenced accounting entries are generated in Sage 300 (PO, OE and IC), ensuring that your inventory and financial records are kept up to date.
All information is stored within Sage 300. No more standalone databases, spreadsheets, or handwritten notes. Full visibility of status and location are maintained from end to end, so your customers can be kept fully informed of progress. Analytical reports provide early warning of product quality issues, allowing you to take corrective action.
The move towards an online economy has brought greater competition, lower margins, and ever higher service expectations. An integrated, automated system to consistently and efficiently manage returns and repairs has never been more important.
Centralized Returns Management
Not only can the RMA module streamline the process of authorizing and receiving returns, seamless integration with other Sage ERP Accpac modules keeps your inventory accurate and provides complete workflow for items to be repaired, replaced, or returned to the supplier. Full process automation assures customer returns are handled rapidly
Track And Bill For Repairs
Items being returned may be under a warranty provided by either your own organization or a supplier. The RMA module can handle both of these situations. In some situations, you may need to send the product out to a third-party repair agent. The RMA module keeps track of these agents, so you never lose track of a customer’s product. For items damaged in shipping, RMA offers a centralized place to record and track insurance claims made against shipping carriers.
Tailor RMA To Your Company
Setup options allow you to define return policies for your items and any restocking fees or miscellaneous charges to be applied. RMA documents can be formatted to fit your needs, and you can define a default expiration period for RMAs. User-definable status codes allow you to designate codes that make sense for your company and products.
Key Features and Benefits
- Quickly identify product faults and take corrective action to eliminate repeat returns
- Tracking returned items effectively and lower your cost on returns
- Avoid losing control of repair revenues
- Automatically assign RMA numbers for easy tracking
- Create a sales order in Order Entry to replace returned goods
- Speed up data entry using timesaving templates and standard reports.
RMA Workflow
The power of the RMA module starts with a customer’s return request. You can generate return authorization documents to provide personalized instructions for the customer. The system assigns a unique number that is tracked through all activities associated with the return. When a customer is returning multiple items, you can process the return quickly by generating the RMA from the original customer invoice and removing the items that are not being returned. If a customer is returning items from multiple invoices, the RMA module can handle them on a single document. Serial and lot tracking allow you to accurately record the product being returned. Once you receive the items, you can generate an Order Entry Credit note with the click of a button. If you are sending a replacement, you can create the Order Entry replacement order directly from the RMA screen. You also can flag an item to be repaired and returned to the customer, or create a purchase order return to send it on to your supplier for replacement or repair. You can do all these things from the RMA entry screen with just the click of your mouse.
Track And Bill For Repairs
Items being returned may be under a warranty provided by either your own organization or a supplier. The RMA module can handle both of these situations. In some situations, you may need to send the product out to a third-party repair agent. The RMA module keeps track of these agents, so you never lose track of a customer’s product. For items damaged in shipping, RMA offers a centralized place to record and track insurance claims made against shipping carriers.
Tailor RMA To Your Company
Setup options allow you to define return policies for your items and any restocking fees or miscellaneous charges to be applied. RMA documents can be formatted to fit your needs, and you can define a default expiration period for RMAs. User-definable status codes allow you to designate codes that make sense for your company and products.
Reason Tracking And Analysis
Perhaps the greatest benefit of an automated RMA system is the insight you can gain into the reasons for returns. Tracking and analyzing the reasons for returns will allow you to take corrective action to prevent future incidents. The Fault Analysis report helps you quickly identify product faults and take corrective action to eliminate repeat returns. Here are some examples of the actions you might take based on the insights you gain:
You may discover that a large percentage of defective items come from a particular vendor and change your supplier.
If a manufactured item is often returned for defects in the finish, you might replace tools or materials involved in the process.
If a particular item is returned with greater frequency than others, but for no specific reason, you may choose to remove it from your product line.
Effective Reporting
A variety of reports help you manage returns. The Credit Note report evaluates the revenue impact of returns. Customer and Item Return Rate reports allow you to identify problem customers and items and take corrective action. The External Status and Workflow Stage report provides accurate tracking of items sent out for repair. The Open/Closed Status report shows you outstanding RMAs.
Security And Fraud Prevention
The RMA module contains built-in controls to prevent abuse of the system. The system checks to see if an item has already been returned, or if a Credit Note has already been issued, ensuring the same item is not credited twice. For security and control, you can designate the employees who are allowed to authorize returns.
If you would like to process claims faster, track inventory with greater accuracy, and optimize customer service performance give us a call to schedule a demonstration of the RMA module for Sage 300c.
Optimize your return processes and build customer loyalty.
Expertly track your products through the entire life of the sales process from purchase order through shipping and back. Gain greater insight into the reasons for returns, process claims faster, track inventory more accurately, and optimize customer service performance.
- Quickly identify product faults and take corrective action to eliminate repeat returns
- Tracking returned items effectively and lower your cost on returns
- Avoid losing control of repair revenues
- Automatically assign RMA numbers for easy tracking
- Create a sales order in Order Entry to replace returned goods
- Speed up data entry using timesaving templates and standard reports.
CASES (WHY SOMETIMES RMA NEEDED)
Item shipped was different from what was ordered. This often happens on cables, adapters and other “small” items. It could also happen to items with different but similar models
Item shipped is inconsistent with what is described on the web site. This often happens because:
- we sometimes are late in revising the item description, picture, and title
- the description is vague or misleading or
- we simply made an honest mistake on the web site
- Wrong shipping method was used. This is very rare
- Credit card charged twice. This happens very rarely. When it does, it happens almost exclusively on orders with Credit Card via Phone payment method and/or when a credit card is charged manually. Our on-line charge system does not allow charging the same credit card more than one time for the same order and leaves a good record of charging history. Manual charge is more susceptible to human error.
Item is missing on order. Check the quantity of the item you ordered and the quantity of items you received immediately after receiving your packages.
Optimise your return processes and build customer loyalty. Expertly track your products through the entire life of the sales process from purchase order through shipping and back. Gain greater insight into the reasons for returns, process claims more quickly, track inventory more accurately, and optimise customer service performance. Sage 300 ERP RMA allows you to quickly identify product faults and take corrective action to eliminate repeat returns, track returned items effectively and lower your cost on returns and avoid losing control of repair revenues. You can automatically assign RMA numbers for easy tracking and speed up data entry using time-saving templates and standard reports.