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Automate your RMA processing with auto settlement.
RMA status management can be cumbersome, especially if you’re dealing with a large volume of returns- even more so if you need to review each returned item for quality control. With Returnly’s auto-settle feature, you can set your RMA settlement period between 0 and 10 days, giving your warehouse, or internal team the time they need to inspect returns, without having to manually move RMAs from “return delivered” to “refunded.”
Unlike our competitors who only allow auto-settlement upon return delivery, Returnly gives you the flexibility to dictate a settlement period that works for your business all the while creating less manual work for your team.
There are two huge benefits to using Auto-Settlement over a manual process:
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Automatically Settles RMAs - For many merchants, especially those who see large volumes of returns, the auto-settle feature serves as a "clean up" tool, that allows to do the necessary RMA management they would normally have to do manually. This is beneficial because the merchant can be confident that its shopper will be refunded, at a maximum, 10 days after their return has been processed.
- Credit Cap - All of our merchants have an Returnly Credit cap, that if reached, will prevent them from issuing Returnly Credit until their active credit lowers. The auto-settle feature keeps the merchants active amount lower by automatically settling RMAs.
You can enable auto-settlement for both instant refund and non-instant refund RMAs as well as have a different settlement window for each one. You have to reach out to our Merchant Care team at support@returnly.com in order to set those windows.
Note: Auto-settlement is available to merchants on our Premium plan.
How Auto-Settlement Works
The auto-settlement window begins after the shipping carrier (USPS, UPS, FedEx, etc.) has marked the package as "delivered" at the return destination. Returnly bubbles this event up to merchants via thereturn.deliveredwebhook event. This event then triggers the grace period for the merchant or its 3PL provider to complete quality control procedures.
The Happy Path
For RMAs that were received in restockable condition ("Happy Path"), the merchant should take no further action. The auto-settlement window will expire and the RMA will settle programmatically. If the Returnly Credit of the RMA had not been used, then the full refund amount would be processed back to the shopper upon settlement. However, if the Returnly Credit had been applied to a new order, then any of its remaining balance would be included in the refund amount.
The Unhappy Path
For RMAs that were missing items or the items in the package were damaged ("Unhappy Path"), the merchant should follow their existing returns policy to process the RMA. For example, this could involve contacting the shopper to further understand the circumstances of the RMA. Typically partial refunds are issued for damaged merchandise or the RMA is cancelled if nothing was received.
Note: This setting is not available in the merchant interface - to activate and configure the number of days involved in the auto-settlement period, you may contact support@returnly.com. This configuration should provide you or your 3PL partner with enough buffer to fully execute your quality control process. Once activated, this setting would only apply to RMAs utilize Returnly Credit by default, but can be configured to apply to all RMAs upon request.
