Returns Inspection: releasing held stock

Returns Inspection is the second half of a customer return. The stores clerk receives the goods; you decide whether they are fit to sell again — and until you do, nobody can sell them.

Find it at Shipping & Receiving → Returns Inspection. You need the CreditNoteInspect permission (the Returns — Inspector role).

Why the screen exists

Returned goods are not automatically good stock. A customer may send back something that is damaged, opened, the wrong revision, or perfectly fine. myWork refuses to guess.

So when a clerk receives a return against a credit note, the stock goes on hold for sale. It is:

recorded in stock — the quantity and the location are real, so nothing goes missing off the books;
not sellable — pickers cannot see it, shipments cannot collect it, and it does not count toward what Sales can promise;
but freely movable — stores can shelve it wherever it belongs.

That last point changed in August 2026. Held stock used to be locked outright, which meant the receiving clerk could not put it away at all and returns piled up in personal inventories. Now the hold travels with the goods: shelve it anywhere and it stays unsellable until you release it.

It sits there until somebody with eyes on the item decides. That somebody is you.

What the screen shows

One card per held stack:

the product description with its [PRODUCT CODE] and picture,
Qty — how many units are in that stack,
Credit note — the return it came back on, so you can trace who returned it and why,
Location — where the stock is now. Because the clerk can shelve held goods, this may not be where they were received.

Use the search box at the top to filter by product code, description or credit-note number.

If it passed — Release to stock

Find the physical item at the location shown on the card.
Check its condition against the credit note — physical or electrical, whatever that item needs. The hold does not distinguish; you decide what checking it warrants.
Tap Release to stock and confirm.

The release is recorded as an audited stock movement carrying your name, the date, the credit note, the quantity and — on a serialized product — exactly which units you passed. That record is the inspection.

Released does not always mean sellable. Stock only counts as available once it is in Stores. If you release something sitting on a Stores shelf it is sellable immediately. If you release something still in someone's personal inventory it becomes ordinary free stock, and it joins sellable stock when somebody shelves it. The message on screen tells you which of the two just happened.

If it failed — Not fit for sale

Tap Not fit for sale. Say how many units failed — or on a serialized line, tick exactly which ones — and write what is wrong with it.

This raises a damaged-goods write-off request. Nothing is written off there and then: the request goes to the usual check-and-approve queue, and the stock stays exactly where it is, locked to that request, until somebody approves it. The reason you type is what the approver reads.

You can fail part of a stack. Two bad units out of five is one request; the other three stay on hold for you to release.

Do not release something you would not sell. Releasing is a statement that the goods are good.

What this screen does not do

It does not receive anything. Receiving the physical return is the clerk's job on Shipping & Receiving → Credit Notes (Returns), and it requires an item photo per line.
It does not approve the return. A sales manager does that first (CreditNoteApprove); until they do, the credit note never reaches the floor at all.
It does not wait for Unleashed, and Unleashed does not wait for it. Getting the credit note entered and completed in Unleashed runs in parallel with your inspection; neither one blocks the other.

The three roles in a return

Sales manager approves the return → it appears on the floor queue. (CreditNoteApprove)
Stores clerk photographs and receives the goods → they go on hold for sale, and can be shelved. (CreditNoteUser)
Inspector checks and either releases or fails them. (CreditNoteInspect)

Each step is a different person's judgement, which is exactly why they are three different permissions.

Credit Note Returns — receiving returned goods — the clerk's half of the job.
Who can do what on the floor — the full permission and rule map.
Shipping & Receiving statuses — what Parked, Placed and Dispatched mean for stock.