Those are some pretty good ones 
They have a lot of dumb people in their customer support.. I’d rather them just say, sorry we know it’s a problem. We’re working on it and it should be fixed by 2026. That would make me happier…
Nice, I’m on my way that direction as well. Especially with the raise in credit card processing fees. They’re trying really hard to lose business lol
the update is garbage. about 40% of our returns convert to exchanges and Loop Returns is holding that exchange data. all Shopify knows is that there’s a return and they assume it’s a refund and decrement sales. TO ALL – beware of how it’s impacting tax sale collection because the refunds are miscalculated, our sales tax reporting is also incorrect.
i don’t see any upside to this change. it’s def not to get a cleaner financial data (reason shopify provided, mentioned above) as the cleanest way to accomplish that is tracking dollars in and dollars out.
this new method adds customers intended returns to sales reporting which is the opposite of clean data. also, what correction is made if the customer creates a return but never sends back the return and is therefore not refunded? that is a TBD but is a regular occurrence that results in returns and net sales being off indefinitely. or a very common scenario – customers say they will return 4 items and send back 3. not accounted for in this new calculation. this update is a doozy if you rely on a returns SAS. like criminally bad in that we can’t report revenues and tax correctly. we’re trying to get clean data via payouts report. but since sales tax for returns isn’t decrementing correctly (ie. is calculated for the intended return vs. actual refund issued) the sales tax reports are also unreliable and will need to be cross checked with an export from returns software.
this needs to be reverted asap. or at the least, FEATURE REQUEST give stores the option to calculate returns when created OR calculate returns when refunded. simple checkbox in settings. for stores doing a significant % of returns as exchanges AND relying on 3rd party returns software, we can’t run our businesses at scale.
Absolutely, its like they have no idea who their customers are or how they operate a business.
If you go to the “sales over time” report, select the filter and choose “payment status.” Payment status will show you partial and full refunds. I sort the report by payment status, export it to csv format, then sum up all partial and full refunds to get the actual refunds for that day or week. This is what we physically returned to customers. This is a helpful, yet manual, way of calculating true net sales for those of you in need. I haven’t investigated the tax scenario. How do you know taxes will be reported as incorrect?
This is super helpful ^ we will be doing this for the time being until Shopify gets their act together. Thanks Louisa. I can’t attest to the tax scenario yet. Gonna look into that on 4/1 when the quarter ends. I am very afraid of how wrong it will be though lol
Update: MAJOR PROBLEM - Shopify did refund one of our customers just because a return was created. Luckily this customer ended up wanting a refund and not an exchange, so we got SUPER lucky. I asked shopify how this happened and they acknowledge that it was a glitch in their system. They said they are “working on a solution”. So far it has only happened to 1 of our orders and we’ve had about 200 returns since this update started. I’m not sure what the difference was on this one, but it’s terrifying that shopify may just refund your customers when you initiate a return. So far it’s a single isolated occurrence so I’ll chalk it up to bad software but something to be aware of.
OMG are you SERIOUS!!! Surely they will be up for a law suit in no time. This is really really really really bad.
Also how do you know this was an isolated incident? Could there be more that you’ve missed?
There definitely could be more we missed. We have a second case of this where according to our records we didn’t give someone a refund but they are marked as refunded. It’s possible we made a mistake but now I am very paranoid because the first one was very clearly Shopify. There was no refund email sent to the customer and shopify admitted that the refund happened on their end.
This is absolute madness @Shopify_77 . You took something that was working just fine and made a huge mess of it. Do you understand that as business owners it’s kind of important to, ya know, know what our actual sales totals are. Like many of the responders here, our sales numbers are now totally screwed up and unreliable. Sometimes returns are actually being added to our sales totals, sometimes they are being subtracted from them. In most cases, these aren’t even items that were actually sent back. Just returns that were started. No refunds had been issued. We can look at the payments report but we can’t filter that report like we can the sales reports, so it’s not much use. This should really be very simple. Net Sales should = Payments Received. Returns should = Refunds Issued. People start returns and then never send the items back. Or they don’t send everything back that they said they should. Are those added back later?How do you account for these @Shopify_77 ? This is the stupidest, most useless, unhelpful update that Shopify has done. And that’s saying something.
Who asked for this change? How does this improve the experience of store owners?
On top of all this, Shopify continues to make it nearly impossible for us to get in touch with anyone there who actually knows what the hell is going on. Great job alienating all of the people who use your platform. What a joke.
The people here are freaking out, justifiably, but it gets worse. My company does nearly 100% repairs, not returns. We make a small tech product with remarkably low return rates, but they’re used in rough environments and we have a very generous warranty and repair process. We’ve used a third party app to manage our ‘returns’ successfully for years, but when using Shopify’s new returns system it assumes 100% of our returned items are refunds, when it’s actually 0%. It makes no sense at all, and shows Shopify has an almost complete lack of awareness of their own customers operations.
Hi Everyone,
I started noticing these accounting discrepancies in February and glad to see I’m not the only one with these concerns.
We use Loop returns. After spending hours trying to understand what Shopify changed, and spot trends on 3rd returns app reporting I can now say this is complete Nonsense! Shopify has no clue how real business operations flow and keeping consistent accounting practices.
I feel now, everyone on the thread is concerned about payouts aligning to what are real refunds and returns along with finance summary reports and crap reporting methods when using 3rd party app such as a Loop returns. I’m happy to discuss with any questions and now feel the only way Shopify will address issues is if our collective voices make enough noise.
I get why Shopify made these reporting changes. THEY want better clarity and metrics on your business performance (think how often people may initiate a return).
Shopify has many financial solutions and this metric is just another they will use to say your net sales will be accounted for HOW THEY feel serves their internal decisions pertaining to our stores performance.
This is flawed and does not take into account many details of the sales process and how companies approve, refund, exchange, etc. For those interested, here is a transcript to our 3rd Party App Loop Returns. Shame on shopify!
They are introducing so many updates and changes to every aspect of the admin panel, reporting, basic dashboard layouts, and on and on.
We downgraded from Shopify plus because the only benefit was someone answering the phone to refer us to the same articles or to hire an expert. Since our sales were under 1.5M just didn’t see the benefit of reduced credit card fees.
NOW, I’m starting to believe that all these changes without clear training articles, announcements, and app interfrremce are to further confuse store owners and push them to paying $2500/month to get access to live person whom can attempt to answer questions on all the updates occurring weekly.
Am I alone in seeing this trend?
Anyhoo, I am normally the silent observer, but with 7 years on shopify, and testing most integrations, apps, or processes,
I feel that the community is our only place to get information and let Shopify understand what the real world is saying and feeling.
#######
BELOW Transcipt From Sexyshoes>Loop
########÷
- returns, then don’t even return them. How can this be addressed and fixed?
- Non-Returnable items need to be confirmed that shopify sales reports are not getting a decrease in reporting.
- How is loop reporting to shopify and triggering returns/refunds from sales reports? We cannot even align our closed books for previous months sales when Loop is reducing our sales summary finance reports for historical booked days in previous months which seems to be happening. We need better understanding of this.
The articles I have read and updated as recently as 3/24/2024 are advising to implement far reaching accounting practices, multiple exporting reports, merging, updating data, etc. It’s really nonsense and not sure what can be done or if you are getting similar complaints.
There is heavy activity across the dev and chat boards, while nobody has really been clear on what occurred, why, and confirmation of what sales are getting decreased by Loop triggers, what happens when we don’t approve returns, and how true refunds/returns (actually received to our warehouse and approved) affect shopify.
For our accounting purposes:
Net Sales = Gross sales – discounts – refunds (can be from defective merch, or unable to fill) – returns (actually received to inventory for resales, not a pending arbitrary number based on an intention)
COGS = Beginning Inventory + Purchases – Returns (approved and received) – Discounts/allowances + Shipping collected – Ending Inventory value
From everything we are seeing these GAAP methods are not being followed, and or have become an endless rabbit hole of reporting and comparison which nobody has really addressed on the Loop or Shopify side to give advance notice or what happened.
Hope this helps clarify the concerns better.
Sincerely
Scott
REPLY LOOP BELOW
##################
Hello Scott,
Thanks for following up, jumping in and passing along this insight of what you are encountering!
In reviewing the points you provided, the behavior you are encountering with all returns, impacting your sales is a result of a change Shopify made recently. I do know Shopify sent this update to a merchant
Shopify did make this change and the visual reporting changes that you are encountering are stemming due to this change they made - not a change Loop made. That said, I can share that our engineers and product team are aware of the change Shopify made and they are actively working with Shopify to understand the changes they are making and how those interact with Loop! I will follow up in this thread to update you if and when our team receives any updates. 
Thank you for your agility regarding this Shopify change and your patience in helping me understand what you are encountering!
Best,
Rece
##########End Loop
In conclusion, this has probably been one of the most irresponsible changes Shopify has implemented without beta testing or getting input from their customers.
I hope this helps with some of your concerns. For store owners using integrated accounting software, I certain this will be a nightmare if you value GAAP reoccurred. You will most likely need to export several csv files from your apps and shopify, then do merges, updates, J/E adjustments with clear backups. This is a huge cost of time and just makes it harder to make informed business decisions. Did I mention how angry and disappointed I am with Shopify yet?
The Loop response was ridiculous and I’m cooling off before responding back to them.
LOOP was founded by ex-shopify engineers and built around a solid integration and understand of shopify platform. Even they have no clue 1 month after the roll outs occurred.
Hope this help the group. My apologies in advance for grammar issues. This is a quick rant done my cell. Please don’t send my spelling correction notices. Just trying to help those who are frightened, or not clear on what triggered this.
Let’s hope that shopify reverses this change, or at least updates some flexibility with 3rd party return apps which actually create refunds once received and approved, etc.
Shopify did revert the sales dashboard a few weeks ago to show your sales metrics on the page. That was another boneheaded update, so they may actually be listening when enough customers started engaging the community.
Good Luck!
Scott
Thanks for posting this detailed response. I agree with you completely. The only way we are going to see change is through collective complaints and voicing our concern. Shopify has made it clear that they don’t really care about the issue on a one-on-one basis. I hoping enough people view and upvote and comment that they have the same issue.. Maybe they will take note. It’s a real shame.
I will share what Loop advises and a few links to their recent suggestions to re-align the sales reporting all happens outside of shopify or Loop. It’s difficult and beyond 90% of users skills just to manage the excel file process once you get the correct exported reports from Shopify and then exporting Loop csv files.
Why would shopify create a process that requires everyone using 3rd party apps to manage all sales reporting outside of the platform. Thats what we Pay for and it’s now just another guide for us. The reality is export many reports, customize columns, and then disregard what you see in shopify sales reports.
Oh, and while you wasting those 10 hours of time each month, ya just may want to exports all the payouts csv and compare those against the finance summary to be sure they didn’t actually make the refund and deduct it from YOUR money.
And Lastly, be sure to note that the actual refunds you execute and approve no longer reflect on the day you processed it. We now keep the customers money for 2-3 days and when we decide to pay them, we will just reduce your sales reports accordingly on the same day we pay them, NOT the day your processed ans accounted for it.
Now you understand why Saturday your sales dashboard said you did 7k but 3 days later you go back and it says 5k. Yep those were returns initiated so we just reduced your sales good luck the rest if the way figuring it out from here. But don’t worry, this is to provide you precise and accurate, consistent reporting of your real sales and deposits
What a disgusting insult to the people who made this company the success it is today though hard work and loyalty.
Still angry!
“Oh, and while you wasting those 10 hours of time each month, ya just may want to exports all the payouts csv and compare those against the finance summary to be sure they didn’t actually make the refund and deduct it from YOUR money.”
Can you please advise on how to do this? As one of the other uses confirmed shopify refunded a customer from a return THEMSELVES and called it a ‘system glitch’ - I have absolutely no words. Its so hard and expensive to capture online sales and money retention for business owners is absolutely imperative. And then they just give the money back without your authority. Absolutely ludicrous.
ALSO - everyone let’s start posting this thread on their social media accounts!!! TikTok and Instagram and Facebook.
Hi Sau2610-
I’m providing the link below which provides updated information posted by Loop Returns as of March 26, 2024. As you can see they are updating instructions acting as if this is something store owner’s should already be doing, but its obvious the influx of complaints is forcing them to continously update their FAQ pages as as pertains to this new shopify update.
It’s important to note that these instructions are only for Loop Returns. That said, Loop is considered a 3rd party App just like the many others (Happy returns, Returnly, Aftership, etc.) All that Shopify has really done to notify store owners at this time is to create a small pop up when opening certain sales reports:
You may follow the accounting logic but each 3rd party app will have different exports and process to arrive at some sort of reconciliation. At the very least, this should provide everyone with more information, the complexity, and limitations if using integrated financial app (quickbooks, etc.)
I have yet to test and review the process and am mostly concerned to track and audit payouts against the actual not received, approved, or REAL refunded monies through Loop. That audit in itself is a real pain point, but will be needed based on the other users comments that Shopify actually executed a refund (debit from payouts) for a non-approved or received return. This is the real problem now. We don’t have confidence and clarity in the reporting, and these “phantom” refunds in sales reports for initiated returns by customers not approved or actually refunded by the store owner should never trigger a reduction on our payouts. Furthermore, the payouts are always trailing a few days, and the actual refunds now take 2-3 days to to get processed by Shopify and show up on sales reports then. Not the day we actaully execute the refund. Therefore, we have multiple reports, conflicting data, and days which don’t align up. This makes it more difficult to track the real refunds, adjustments, credits, return fee that get deducted from the return (if you use that method), and so on. I’m thinking that we will have to create Powershell scripts that will look up on order number values, then the data from the different reports to output a reconcile showing the true sales and processed returns. This makes the Shopify analytics useless to us except as a general guideline to our sales. That said, you cant even compare now against prevous months and quarters, as this wasnt the accounting process then and you will certainly see a downward trend in sales as of February forward if you utilize Gift Cards (about 40% of your returns are handled that way), exchanges, or have restocking fees (adjustments). Shopify is just going to reduce your sales the moment the 3rd party app (at least Loop) receives a customer return submission. Loop then opens the archived order, even if the customer never returns it or lies and returns 2 of the 5 items they claimed.
Until you inspect and inspect, receive, and issue a refund, there should be no way that Shopify automatically deduct the value of this intitiated return by the 3rd party app from your sales reporting. They are making some pretty huge assumptions and ignoring other key compononets altogether.
I find it interesting that Shopify says this issue only arrises with 3rd party apps while they promote their own internal new customer checkout with return functionality. There return function does not even support Gift Card refunds and exchange options so why would you penalize everyone that has to pay for a return app to begin with becuase theirs is inferior.
Anyway, I hope this helps and here is the link for review. Enjoy the reading and good luck!
Accounting/Reconcile Instructions:
Thanks Everyone,
Scott
Hi Scott,
Thanks so much for the time taken to help provide some clarity to Shopify customers. Definitely not your job and its amazing that the community seems to be giving better customer service that the service we pay extremely high premium fees for.
To be honest, what I have been doing is accepting a return from a customer, adding their request to the notes section of the order, this triggers an accepted email to the customer, I then go in and cancel the return request and then reach out to the customer via email to deal with their return. If an exchange is taking place once the item is received back and approved, I will create a new order in the system and then discount to 100% as the exchange and dispatch the order. As I have cancelled the return, the Shopify reporting data doesn’t recognise this anymore and doesn’t deduct from my sales figures. If a store credit is taking place, then a gift card is issued. I know I’m basically giving up my reporting for return rates but I would much rather have more accurate net sales figures. I don’t use a third party currently for any returns.
I have only just started this procedure about a week ago so there will be some discrepancies with my reporting since this new update was initiated but I at least feel more in control with the reports as of now. Its too hard for my accountants to figure this out if I was accepting all returns to the system.
We also realized this right after developing our integration of returns with Shopify. We now give merchants visibility on returns when they are requested by customers (auto-approved by merchants) and inspected and restocked at the warehouse. Context: we are a 3PL and post-purchase experience platform (providing a return portal to merchants).
The problem our merchants face is that they now have too many returns in their Financial summaries. Some ask us to no longer sync returns with Shopify now.
What I am unclear about (I haven’t found documentation for it) is why Shopify considers a Return approved as negative sales (and adjusts the Returns line with negative amount at this moment). Many customers request a return but end up never shipping their return.
=> Is it possible to get an answer from the Shopify team on why this has been done this way?
We also have store credit and exchanges returns so we are also wondering how to handle this in a Shopify-approved way.