At a glance
Distribution of in-flight RMA (Return Merchandise Authorisation) requests across the workflow stages: Pending Approval, Authorised, Received, Pending Refund, Closed, Rejected. Adobe Commerce native RMA is part of the Adobe Commerce SKU only (Magento Open Source does not include RMA out of the box). The card reflects RMA volume in-pipeline, not refund value already paid.
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Adobe Commerce data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A B2B janitorial-supply distributor on Adobe Commerce 2.4.7 with native RMA enabled. Snapshot 13 May 26, 30-day rolling. RMA distribution by status:
Hidden in the data:
Insight pattern:
- Pending Approval at 47 (28% of pipeline) is the highest stage. This is the top-of-funnel; healthy. The 9 over-14-days are the concern, those are accounts waiting on a Sales decision and risk turning into churn signals.
- Received but not Approved (4 over 14 days) indicates a warehouse inspection backlog. The merchandise is in the warehouse, the customer is waiting on a refund decision, but the inspect step has not happened. This is the slowest stage to fix and the most damaging to NPS.
- Pending Refund at 14, of which 6 are over 7 days old. Customer Service has authorised the refund but not yet issued the Credit Memo. This is a posting problem, not a decision problem. The 6 over-7-days represent ~$7,860 of customer-side waiting on cash. Easy fix: assign one CS rep a daily 30-min slot to clear the queue.
- Forecast the next 14 days of Credit Memo flow. 19 Approved + 14 Pending Refund = 33 RMAs likely to become Credit Memos in the next 1-2 weeks. Expected refund value ≈ 33 × 46,200. This matches the historical 30-day refund value within 5%, the pipeline is in steady state.
- Rejected count (7) is healthy. Roughly 4% rejection rate is industry-typical for B2B (legitimate damage claims, not fraud). A rejection rate >10% suggests either fraud spikes or an unsupportive returns policy that frustrates customers.
- Cross-link with Refund Value: if next 14 days’ actual refund value materially differs from the $46k forecast above, either the warehouse approval cadence is changing or RMAs are stalling; investigate.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in Adobe Commerce Admin:Sales > Returns (Adobe Commerce only). The grid lists every RMA withIf the Sales > Returns menu is missing, the RMA module is not enabled (Magento Open Source) or the Admin role lacks theIncrement ID,Order #,Status,Date Requested. Filter byStatusto slice. The aggregate count at the bottom should match this card.
Magento_Rma::all ACL.
For per-customer history:
Customers > All Customers > [customer] > Returns tab shows every RMA filed by that customer.Why our number may legitimately differ from Adobe Commerce Admin:
Cross-connector reconciliation (when these connectors are connected for this merchant):
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
My Magento Open Source store shows zero RMAs, why? Native RMA is only in Adobe Commerce (paid SKU). Magento Open Source does not include RMA. Either upgrade to Adobe Commerce or install a third-party RMA module (Aheadworks, Mageplaza, Mirasvit). Once installed, configure the Vortex IQ connector for that module’s tables. An RMA is in Pending Approval for 30 days, what happened? Either the assigned Sales rep is OOO, the customer didn’t respond to a clarification request, or the RMA fell off the team’s queue. The card flags any RMA over 14 days as a stuck workflow. Configure escalation rules in Adobe Commerce > Stores > Configuration > Sales > RMA to auto-close abandoned RMAs after N days. Why doesn’t Pending Refund automatically become a Credit Memo? Adobe Commerce keeps the RMA-to-Credit-Memo step manual on purpose. CS reviews the RMA, confirms the goods received, then issues a Credit Memo. This intentional gap exists for fraud prevention (catch “I returned it” claims with no actual return) and for restocking-fee adjustments. A customer says they returned an item but it’s not in Received status, why? Three causes: (1) warehouse hasn’t logged it yet (most common; 1-3 days lag); (2) the warehouse received it under a different RMA number; (3) the carrier delivered to the wrong dock and the item is in transit limbo. Cross-check with the RMA’s tracking number in Sales > Returns > [RMA]. How long should RMA-to-Credit-Memo take? Industry-typical: 7-14 days end-to-end. Best-in-class B2B: 3-5 days. If your median age inApproved and Pending Refund adds up to >10 days, customers are waiting too long; check the warehouse-receive-to-approve step (often the bottleneck).
Can the same order have multiple RMAs?
Yes. A B2B order with 50 line items may generate 3 RMAs (different damage claims at different times). Each is a separate row in the card.
RMA vs Credit Memo, which is the source of truth?
For pipeline / forecasting: RMA. For accounting / GL: Credit Memo. RMAs can be cancelled before becoming Credit Memos; Credit Memos are immutable once posted.
My RMA count seems low compared to refund count, why?
Some refunds skip RMA entirely. Adobe allows direct Credit Memo creation from Sales > Orders > [order] > Credit Memo without an RMA. DTC apparel often does this for low-value returns where inspection is unnecessary. To force RMA-first, configure Stores > Configuration > Sales > Sales > Allow Credit Memo Without RMA = No (Adobe Commerce only).
Can I see RMAs by warehouse / location?
Yes if the merchant has Inventory module locations configured. Filter the card by pickup_location_id. For multi-warehouse merchants this is the most useful slice.