Returns Reporting Flaw --Any thoughts

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

Shopify recently changed how returns are recorded in sales reports, now deducting sales immediately when a merchant approves a return request—before the customer actually ships the product back or receives a refund.

The core problem:

  • Sales figures are reduced at approval, not at actual refund completion
  • This creates inaccurate reporting when customers request returns but never follow through
  • Merchants cannot exclude orders with “refund owed” status from reports

Current workaround:
If a customer doesn’t return the product, merchants must manually cancel the return to restore the sale in reports—but this doesn’t correct the timing, leaving data messy and inaccurate.

Merchant requests:

  • Ability to customize when returns impact reports (at request, approval, or refund)
  • Better return analytics tracking:
    1. Return requested
    2. Approved returns
    3. Return refunded (product received, return closed)

Shopify has confirmed this is the intended behavior, with no current solution available. Multiple merchants report this significantly affects their performance tracking and customer service.

Summarized with AI on November 2. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

A few months back Shopify seems to have made a change in the way Returns are reported. Now when a customer requests a return and you approve the request, the reporting shows that the sales are taken out that day. Keep in mind, the customer has not even begun the return or sent the product back. That creates a big issue with Shopify’s method of logging the return in the sales report because there are times when a customer may not bother to return the product at all even if they request the return.

The return should only be deducted from any report when the actual refund is made to the customer and that return is closed out. I already contacted Shopify and they said that is how its intended, which makes no sense.

Please make it make sense, am I missing something as why it needs to happen this way? Its throwing off my reports when I am trying to review performance because sales are being deducted before a refund is made.

2

I’m having the same issue - I’ve contacted Shopify numerous times and there doesn’t seem to be a way to exclude orders with a “refund owed” balance out of reports - even consolidating the payouts isn’t a good enough solution to this. It’s really affecting our reporting and service to our customers - Shopify should surely allow merchants the opportunity to at least decide how they wish to report on returns. If you’ve found a way around this in the meantime, I’d love if you could share it with me!

3

Unfortunately, Shopify says that is what was intended in the report. If for some reason the customer never returns a product, which has happened, you have to cancel the return and then the funds will be added into the reporting and not shown as a loss, It’s still not clean and doesn’t show on the correct days. I agree we should have the ability to show how returns are reporting in our data based on our business needs and get more analytics around returns like: 1. Return requested 2. Approved Returns 3. Return refunded (customer actually returned product and return can be closed)