MYOB Acumatica Customer Returns: Which Order Type to Use for Credits, Replacements and RMAs

MYOB Acumatica processes customer returns through five predefined sales order types: CR for cash returns, CM for an unauthorised return with no receipt, RC for an authorised return received into stock and credited, RR for a like-for-like swap at the same price, and RM for a replacement at a different price or a warranty return. The credit memo each one raises is your GST adjustment note.

At a glance

• Who it is for: customer service, warehouse and finance leads at Australian distributors and manufacturers on MYOB Acumatica, and buyers checking how returns will work before they sign
• Problem it solves: returns keyed as negative sales orders, credits raised with no link to the original invoice, stock written back at the wrong value and no way to see how much of an invoice has already come back
• Platforms: MYOB Acumatica (Standard, Distribution and Manufacturing editions with the Inventory feature on); RC, RM and RR appear only when Inventory is enabled on the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form
• Typical cost: no extra licence, because return order types are part of order management; licences are per named user and quoted through partners, and a partner-led implementation runs A$20,000 to A$75,000 ex GST as an indicative range from our MYOB Acumatica cost guide
• Typical timeline: typically a day to activate and test each return type you keep, inside the sales order fulfilment module of a 12-week FastStart project or a three to six month partner-led implementation
• Last verified: 26 October 2026 against the MYOB Acumatica Online Help pages for Sales Order Types: General Information, Returns for Credit with Receipts and Returns for Replacement at Another Price, and the ATO’s adjustment notes page (last updated 14 September 2026)

A return is the one sales transaction that touches three teams at once. Customer service agrees it, the warehouse receives it, and finance has to credit it without breaking the GST trail. MYOB Acumatica handles that by making the return its own order type rather than a sales order with a minus sign, and the order type you pick decides what documents get generated. Pick the wrong one and you’ll either have stock on hand that never came back or a credit memo with nothing behind it.

Which MYOB Acumatica return order type should you use?

MYOB’s Sales Order Types: General Information help page describes two return workflows. The simple one creates a return order and prepares the financial document straight from it. The full one receives the returned goods, ships a replacement, and then prepares the invoice or credit. Which workflow you get depends on the order type.

The sixth relative is MO (Mixed Order), which records a sale and a return on the same document for a counter transaction. The help page notes the Process Shipments box is cleared on its template, so an MO order never creates a shipment; it’s built for in-person returns handled by a cashier, not for anything that needs to travel.

Two practical rules fall out of the table. If goods are physically coming back to your warehouse, you want RC, RR or RM, because those are the types that create a receipt the warehouse can confirm. If nothing is coming back, or it’s already sitting on the dock and nobody raised paperwork, CM or CR keeps it simple.

How does a return for credit flow from the order to the credit memo?

The RC order is the one most distributors use day to day, and the Returns for Credit with Receipts help page walks through it in four documents.

• The return order. You create an order of the RC type on the Sales Orders (SO301000) form and add the item. Add Invoice on the Details tab opens the Add Invoice Details dialog so the line carries a reference to the original invoice; Add Items adds a line with no invoice link if the sale was never in the system.
• The receipt. Create Receipt on the More menu prepares an incoming shipment with the Receipt operation type. The warehouse confirms it on the Shipments (SO302000) form once the goods are checked, and that confirmation is what puts the quantity back on hand.
• The credit memo. Prepare Invoice creates a sales invoice of the Credit Memo type on the Invoices (SO303000) form. The help page is specific that this document carries links to the applicable shipments and sales orders. Releasing it posts the GL batch and, if Automatically Release IN Documents is ticked on the Sales Orders Preferences (SO101000) form, releases the inventory transaction with it.
• The AR side. The released credit memo appears on the Invoices and Memos (AR301000) form as an AR credit memo, which no longer carries the shipment links. You then apply it to the original invoice, or process a refund if the invoice was already paid. Our post on MYOB Acumatica accounts receivable covers the application and refund steps.

The order of those documents matters more than it looks. Finance can’t release the credit before the warehouse confirms the receipt, so the customer is credited for what came back, not for what they said they were sending. That single control removes most of the “we credited 12 and received 9” conversations.

What changes when the customer wants a replacement instead of a refund?

Two order types cover replacements, and the difference is price.

RR is for an exact swap. The Returns for Replacement at the Same Price help page says the customer receives the same or another item at exactly the same price, so no invoice or credit memo is processed at all. Each Receipt line for a returned item needs a matching Issue line for the replacement. For items that aren’t lot or serial tracked, ticking Auto-Create Issue on the return line makes the system add the replacement line when the receipt is confirmed. For lot or serial tracked items you clear that box and add the replacement line yourself, choosing the exact unit from the invoice lines.

RM is for everything else: a different item, a higher or lower price, freight or handling charges added, or a return inside the warranty period. The Returns for Replacement at Another Price help page describes the full workflow: the return line carries a negative quantity and the Receipt operation, the replacement line a positive quantity and the Issue operation, and you create both a receipt and a shipment from the same order. When both are confirmed the RMA order moves to Completed. Prepare Invoice from the receipt produces a Credit Memo, and from the shipment an Invoice, so the customer ends up billed or credited for the difference. The Sales Order Types page adds that an RM order’s financial document can include a restocking fee.

The honest caveat: RM is the most flexible type and the one that generates the most documents. If your returns are mostly straight swaps, activate RR and keep RM for warranty and price-difference cases, so your team isn’t preparing two invoices for every exchange.

When should you use a credit memo order instead of an RMA?

The CM order exists for the return that arrives without paperwork. MYOB’s Processing Returns for Credit Without Receipts help page describes it as the type for an unauthorised return where shipping the returned items into inventory isn’t needed as a separate step.

What makes CM different is what the released credit memo does. The help page states that for a credit memo order the released sales invoice acts as a shipment does: it updates Qty. on Shipments on the order lines, writes its own reference onto the Shipments tab, and automatically generates an inventory issue with the Credit Memo transaction type that adds the returned item back to stock. So the item does come back on hand; it just comes back when finance releases the credit, not when the warehouse confirms a receipt.

That’s fine for a retail counter or for low-value goods where a receipt step would be overhead. It’s the wrong choice for a distributor with a receiving dock, because it puts the stock movement in finance’s hands rather than the warehouse’s. Our rule of thumb on implementation projects is that a business with a goods-in process uses RC and RM, and keeps CM active only for the customer-service manager to clean up the odd unannounced return.

How do you find the original invoice and track every return against it?

Returns go wrong when nobody can find the sale. The MYOB Acumatica 2024.1.1 release notes describe the Add Invoice Details dialog that opens from a return order with the RMA Order, Credit Memo or Mixed Order automation behaviour, and it now searches by:

• Document or order. AR document type and number (Invoice, Cash Sale, Debit Memo or Credit Memo), or the sales order type and number.
• Item. Inventory ID, and the lot or serial number when Lot and Serial Tracking is enabled.
• Date range. Start and end dates, with the start date defaulting to 90 days before the end date; the release notes recommend narrowing the range when you search by item rather than by document.

The dialog’s Available for Return column shows how much of the invoiced quantity can still come back after earlier returns, and ticking a line sets Qty. to Return to that figure, which you can reduce. Once the return exists, the Return Documents Related to Sales Order (SO4010SP) form, opened from Related Return Documents on the side panel of the Sales Orders form, lists every return order, receipt and credit against the original sale. For a distributor fielding “what have we already credited on that order?” that one form is the answer, and it’s also where a dispute over short deliveries gets settled with documents rather than memory.

If your returned goods carry batch or expiry data, the lot selection in that dialog is what keeps the trace intact; our post on MYOB batch and lot tracking covers how a recalled lot is traced back through sales and returns.

Is the credit memo a valid GST adjustment note?

In Australia a credit on a taxable sale is a decreasing adjustment for the seller, and the ATO’s adjustment notes page, last updated 14 September 2026, says you need a valid adjustment note before you can make a decreasing adjustment unless the adjustment is for GST of $75 or less. The ATO’s own example is a $660 discount on an earlier sale, which carries $60 of GST and therefore needs no note.

The practical consequence for a MYOB Acumatica return is that the credit memo is the adjustment note, so it has to be issued from the system with the same care as a tax invoice: your ABN, the customer, the date, the original invoice reference and the GST amount. The RC, RM and CM workflows all produce it as a Credit Memo type document on the Invoices (SO303000) form, with the Add Invoice link tying it to the original sale. Where the return order was built from Add Items with no invoice link, that reference is missing, which is one reason to insist on Add Invoice whenever the sale exists in the system. Your BAS (Business Activity Statement) then picks the credit up in the period the credit memo is released, and the customer makes the matching increasing adjustment on their side. For a return that is GST-free, such as basic food, there is no GST adjustment to make at all, which the tax category on the original invoice line handles for you. Our post on preparing BAS in MYOB Acumatica covers where released credit memos land on the GST worksheet.

“Returns are where a distribution implementation shows whether anyone thought about the warehouse. If the credit can be released before the receipt is confirmed, finance is crediting what the customer said, not what came back. The order type fixes that for you, as long as somebody picks the right one before go-live.”

Bill Alvarez, Practice Manager, Auboros

Five settings to decide before you activate a return type

All of these live on the Order Types (SO201000) form, documented on MYOB’s Order Types form reference, except the last.

• Which types stay active. Every predefined return type exists in a new instance. Deactivate the ones you won’t use so a clerk can’t pick RM for a straight swap or CM for goods that are still in transit.
• Hold Orders on Entry. Saves new return orders On Hold until someone removes the hold. For returns that need a manager’s authorisation before the customer ships anything back, this is the control; for a counter CM, it’s just friction.
• Hold Document on Failed Credit Check. The form reference notes this box is editable for order types with the RMA Order automation behaviour. Decide whether a customer already on credit hold can raise an RMA for a replacement, because the replacement is a shipment.
• Days To Keep and Default Operation. Days To Keep sets how long an order sits before it can be selected for cancellation on Process Orders (SO501000), which is how you stop RMAs authorised months ago from lingering open. Default Operation (Receipt or Issue) is editable for RR and custom types and decides what a new line does before anyone changes it.
• Include Returns in Inventory Planning Supply. With MRP or DRP enabled, this box decides whether authorised returns count as supply in planning. Tick it only if returned goods reliably go back to saleable stock; a warranty return that usually ends up scrapped shouldn’t be feeding reorder calculations. Our post on MYOB Acumatica replenishment and reorder points explains what feeds those calculations.

Return order configuration sits inside the sales order fulfilment and shipment processing module of MYOB FastStart for wholesale distribution, so a FastStart project settles these five questions in the same workshop as shipping rules and back orders. For how returns, credits and stock valuation fit together on either platform we implement, see our guide to ERP for wholesale distribution in Australia.

Goes well with

• MYOB Acumatica accounts receivable: applying credit memos and refunds
• MYOB Acumatica barcode scanning and warehouse management: receiving on the scanner
• MYOB batch tracking: lot numbers, expiry dates and recall traces

Setting up customer returns in MYOB Acumatica for a Queensland distributor?

Auboros is a MYOB Acumatica partner in Brisbane and the Gold Coast, and which return types to activate is one of the questions we settle in the first fulfilment workshop on every distribution project. If you’d like to see an RC return and an RM exchange run end to end on a demo instance, or want a second opinion on the types you have active today, book a free consultation. No pitch, just a working session on how your returns should flow.