Retail Return Processing

Challenge

Our customer in the retail industry had a rough road in processing the returned orders. It required a lot of manual work in the background to process a single returned order.
It included preparation of return slip, preparation of credit memo, update journal, sales return and allowance, update inventory products, update account receivable and update journal ledger. Many core enterprise applications were included to process a return order like ERP, SAP, etc. This became a very difficult task at the time of seasonal sale event when there were many return orders and consumed a lot of time from the staffs.

Solution

SmartView RPA effectively managed the returns and performed all the required changes needed in altering the inventory database and customers’ billing. The BOT was integrated with multiple application data bases to process the returns.
Listed below is what we automated
1. The bot prepared a standardized return slip, performed an entry in the enterprise application and emailed the return slip to the warehouse
2. Once the warehouse confirmed the return order, the bot prepared a credit memo, processed and saved
3. It updated the journal, processed sales return and allowance and documented the credit memo and journal
4. It also updated the inventory products into enterprise application and processed the inventory sub ledger
5. Updated the accounts receivable in the enterprise application and processed the accounts receivable sub ledger
6. Updated and processed the general ledger
7. At every step credit memo was updated in the file confirming the completion of a process
8. In the end a summary was created and sent to the SME with the updated credit memo attached

Results

1. Reduced 75% processing cost per annum
2. Increase productivity by processing 24×7 in almost real time
3. End to end rule base automation with zero error
4. Increased customer satisfaction as they received their refund faster than before for a valid/undamaged product
5. Increased retail chain reputation that led to more sales
6. Allowed the employee to perform productive work and focus on customer satisfaction that lead to employee satisfaction
7. Less resource utilization
8. Timely reporting of the processing to the management
9. Real time audit trailsused for compliance and process improvement purposes