Business owners often face the problem of dishonest customers who try to return goods a month or even years after purchase. Cashiers, in turn, may accept such overdue goods due to inattention, haste, or lack of knowledge, which leads to financial losses for the store, confusion in warehouse accounting, and violations of cash discipline. Business owners usually contact technical support with questions such as: «How can I prevent sellers from accepting goods if more than two weeks have passed?» or «Why did the customer come on the 15th day, but the program still allows the return?». To automate this process and prevent fraud at the checkout, Torgsoft provides a special tool — «Maximum return period».
Below is detailed information on how this mode works, how it is synchronized with legislation, and how to configure it correctly.
Legal basis: how Torgsoft counts days
Torgsoft software is developed in strict compliance with the requirements of Ukrainian legislation. According to the second paragraph of part one of Article 9 of the Law of Ukraine «On Consumer Rights Protection», the consumer has the right to exchange goods of proper quality within fourteen days, excluding the day of purchase.
The Torgsoft system strictly follows this rule. The program automatically calculates the number of days during which goods can be returned, excluding the actual day of sale.
Example: if you sold a product on October 31, the 14-day period starts on November 1. Accordingly, the buyer has the legal right to return this product up to and including November 14. The program will allow this return to be processed without errors.
How the program controls the cashier’s actions
Torgsoft minimizes the human factor through automatic blocking and information filtering. Return period control works on several levels:
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Filtering the purchase list. If a customer comes to make a return without a receipt, for example by discount card, the seller opens the list of goods previously sold to this customer. By default, the program will show only those goods that were sold within the period that does not exceed the configured maximum return period. This means the cashier will not physically see, in quick access, a product purchased a month ago and will not be able to select it accidentally.
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Blocking during scanning. If the cashier scans the barcode of a receipt or the barcode of a specific product whose return period has already expired, Torgsoft will display a warning window with an error. For example, the system will report: "The sale was made 15 days ago. This exceeds the allowed return period, which is set to 14 days", and then block the product from being added to the return form.
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Visibility restriction for the seller. To prevent the seller from bypassing the system and finding an old sale manually, the program hides the start date of the period from them in the document view settings, for example, the seller cannot filter receipt searches for the previous year.
Where to find and how to configure the function
Only the business owner or a user with the appropriate administrator rights can manage this restriction. The setting is very flexible:
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Go to the main menu item Settings -> Parameters -> General tab.
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Find the field «Maximum return period (days)».
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By default, this field is already set to 14 days.
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If your store policy is more loyal to customers, for example, you allow returns within 30 or 60 days, you can change this number accordingly.
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If you set the value 0 in this field, the return period will not be limited at all, and the program will allow goods to be accepted regardless of the purchase date.
Summary
The maximum return period control mode in Torgsoft fully removes the need for the owner to manually control cashiers when accepting goods from customers. Since the program algorithm is based on the Law of Ukraine «On Consumer Rights Protection», starting the countdown from the day after the purchase, you can be sure that your sellers act within the legal framework, do not violate buyers’ rights, and at the same time do not allow them to abuse trade rules.
Legal provisions
As of May 2026, the basic rule is as follows: the buyer has the right to exchange a non-food product of proper quality within 14 days, excluding the day of purchase, unless the seller has announced a longer period. That is, the day of sale is not counted: if the product was purchased on October 31, the first day of the period is November 1, and the 14th day is November 14 inclusive. However, the law specifically refers to exchange, and a refund arises when, at the time of the request, there is no similar product available for exchange; in that case, the buyer may terminate the contract and receive the money back. Source: Law of Ukraine «On Consumer Rights Protection», Art. 9.
For the seller, this means that 14 days is the minimum legal period for goods of proper quality; it cannot be «reduced» by internal store rules, but it can be extended, for example to 30 days as a loyal policy. Such goods should be accepted only if they have not been used, their appearance, consumer properties, seals, and labels are preserved, and there is proof of purchase: a paper settlement document, pECR QR code, or electronic receipt. It is important not to confuse this with defective goods: if there is a defect, the rule is not «14 days for return», but the warranty period rules under Art. 8 of the Law.
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