Working with write-off acts: how to find, edit or cancel a document

In retail operations, situations often arise when products must be removed from a store’s inventory: their shelf life has expired, a defect or damage has been identified, or the owner takes the products for personal use. 

To record such operations, the program uses the write-off mode. When working with this mode, the following questions arise most often: 

Let us look at how this works.

How to find a created write-off document

You can find a previously created write-off document in several convenient ways:

1. Through the "Expense List". Go to Warehouse — Expense List. This mode is used to view all outgoing invoices, including write-offs, returns to suppliers, disassembly expenses, and other operations, for the selected period. Using filters, you can quickly find the required document.

2. From the write-off creation window. Go to Document — Write Off Products from the Warehouse and click Select Existing Document. The Expense List form will open, where the "Type" field will already be set to "Write-off". After specifying the required period, you will see a list of documents and can select the required invoice by clicking Select.

If you cannot find the required document, make sure that you are searching within the correct time period. Also, if you are looking for a specific written-off product, check the search settings to determine whether the search is performed by barcode or product code.

How to edit a write-off document

If the document contains an error, it can be corrected provided that it is not closed.

• Changing document details. In the Expense List window, select the document and click Edit. The "Warehouse Document" window will open, where you can edit the document number and date, as well as add or change a comment.

• Changing the destination. Using the Change Parameters button directly in the write-off mode, you can change the counterparty, meaning that you can reassign the destination of this document, for example by changing the reason for the write-off.

• Editing the contents of the document. You can remove a product that was added to the document by mistake or add a new one using a scanner or the manual warehouse selection buttons.

Entrepreneurs often ask about the write-off price. Products are written off neither at the retail price nor at the purchase price, but exclusively at their cost price. If you write off a defective product, such as damaged clothing, its cost price is recorded as a loss, which reduces the company’s total profit. If materials used in production are written off, their cost price is transferred to the cost of the finished product and will affect profit only after that product is sold. To make sure that the product was written off correctly, use the Cost Calculation button in the write-off document. If necessary, the document can be printed in two formats: at cost price or at retail prices.

How to cancel or delete a write-off document

To cancel a write-off completely, the invoice must be deleted. This can be done in the Expense List using the Delete button. The product will then be automatically returned to the warehouse inventory. The deletion is strictly recorded in File — User Activity Log, which records the document type, number, date, amount, and the user who deleted it.

This is the most common question that arises when working with write-offs. Editing or deletion is prohibited in the following cases:

1. Closed period. You will not be able to delete a record if the document date falls within a closed period.

2. The document was closed manually. If the document has the "Closed" status, the program will display the error "The document is closed. All operations are prohibited". To edit it, go to Warehouse - Expense List and use the action Change Status — Open.

3. Automatic write-offs. This is the strictest restriction. Automatic write-off documents cannot be opened, changed, or deleted. They are created automatically by the program and immediately receive the "Closed" status. Such documents include:

•   Write-offs created after an inventory statement is closed, when a product shortage is identified.

•   Write-offs of materials used in production. You cannot change the status of such materials or cancel their write-off directly. To cancel this write-off, you must delete the production document itself, provided that product manufacturing has not yet begun under that document.

•   Write-offs of spare parts when recording a repair.

If you encounter an automatically created document and the program displays the message "Changes are prohibited. The document was created automatically", you need to find the original source from which it was created, such as the inventory statement, production document, or repair, and cancel or edit the operation through that original mode.