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How Return Fees Are Calculated in 3PL Billing

Return fees in 3PL Billing are charged when an RMA is marked Complete. Return item fees are charged across items by product profile; return label fees match against configured filter conditions per label. The fields below describe what each fee type records on the RMA.

Table of Contents

RMA Status Requirement for Return Fees

Both return item fees and return label fees only trigger when the RMA status is updated to Complete. Receiving inventory at the warehouse alone does not generate charges — the RMA must be explicitly moved to Complete status for billing to run.

RMA Status Triggers Billing?
Complete Yes — charges are generated.
Pending No.
Canceled No.
Custom Return Statuses No.
Warehouse Complete No.

Return Item Fee — How Charges Are Applied in 3PL Billing

Items are grouped by product profile — a set of fee rules assigned to specific products. For each profile group, charges are applied independently. A return with items from two different product profiles generates two separate charge groups.

  1. First Return Charge — 1 unit at the first return rate for the first item in the profile group.
  2. Return Within Range Charges — for items falling within a defined range, charged at that range's rate.
  3. Return Remainder Charges — for all remaining items outside defined ranges, charged at the remainder rate.
  4. Additional SKU Charges — if enabled, 1 unit at the additional SKU rate for the first item of each additional SKU within the profile group.

Kit handling: Kit items are expanded at billing time — a kit's total quantity is the sum of its component quantities, and the charge is applied to that expanded count.

Return Label Fee — How Filter Matching Works in 3PL Billing

A charge is generated per RMA label that matches all of the fee's configured conditions. All conditions must match simultaneously — a label that passes carrier conditions but fails weight conditions does not generate a charge.

Default Flag Bypasses All Filters

When the default flag is enabled on a return label fee, all filter criteria are bypassed — the fee charges every completed return label regardless of carrier, method, weight, or order profile. A default fee cannot have any carriers, methods, or weight ranges defined — this is enforced at creation time.

Labels from certain carrier integrations are normalized to their base carrier name for matching against billing configuration. If a label fee is not firing for an expected carrier, confirm the carrier name matches the normalized value in the billing profile.

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