Mastering Shipment and Return Management with Empress

Guides & Tutorials
1

Introduction

In the world of business, it’s essential to efficiently manage the delivery of goods to your customers. Empress provides a powerful feature, Shipment Management, to help you do just that. Let’s dive into how you can create, submit, and handle returns of shipments right within Empress.

Creating a Shipment

Creating a shipment in Empress is straightforward. There are two ways to create a shipment:

From a Sales Invoice

  1. After finalizing a sales invoice, click on ‘Create’ and select ‘Shipment’.
  2. This action will generate a Shipment linked to the Sales Invoice.

From the List View

  1. Navigate to Inventory > Shipment.
  2. Click on the blue + button to create a new shipment.

Note: This method doesn’t link the shipment to any Sales Invoices.

Once you’ve initiated the creation of a shipment, you’ll fill out a Shipment form. If you’re generating a shipment from a Sales Invoice, the form will autofill with the relevant details. If not, you’ll need to manually input the shipment details.

After filling out the form, click on ‘Save’ and ‘Submit’ to finalize the shipment.

Shipment Statuses

Each shipment will have one of four possible statuses:

  • Submitted: The shipment entry has been finalized.
  • Return: The shipment has been returned.
  • Return Issued: A return entry has been created against the shipment.
  • Cancelled: The shipment entry has been cancelled.

Managing Shipment Returns

Sometimes, a customer may need to return items due to various reasons. Empress provides a feature to track these returns seamlessly.

Activating Stock Returns

Before creating shipment returns, ensure that the Stock Returns feature is activated. You can do this by checking the Enable Stock Returns option in Inventory Settings.

Creating a Shipment Return

To create a Shipment Return:

  1. Open the Shipment entry to be returned.
  2. Click on Create > Return.
  3. The original shipment details will automatically fill in. Adjust the quantity of Items returned as necessary.
  4. Save and Submit.

Note: Returned item quantities and payment amounts will be negative to indicate a return.

Shipment Returns and the General Ledger

Each Shipment Return creates entries in the General Ledger to reverse the impact of the original shipment.

Viewing Ledger Entries

You can easily view your ledger entries related to shipments. After submitting a shipment, click on the ‘View’ button and select the ledger you wish to view.

In conclusion, Empress’s shipment management feature simplifies the process of tracking and managing your business’s shipments and returns. This guide should serve as a comprehensive guide to using this feature effectively. For further assistance, consult Empress’s non-technical resources or reach out to our support team.