The Setup
Three months before we came on, the dispensary returned 23 units of defective product to a vendor. Packaging issues, potency below spec, a few units damaged in transit. The return was handled correctly on the compliance side — product transferred back to the vendor in Metrc, package statuses updated, everything clean in the state system.
What didn't happen: nobody created a credit memo. Nobody sent the vendor a formal request for the credit. Nobody deducted the $1,847 wholesale value from the next invoice. The compliance was done. The money wasn't.
What We Found
During the initial evaluation (free, first week), we pulled the dispensary's Metrc transfer history and cross-referenced it against their credit records. The return transfer was right there — 23 packages transferred back to the vendor, dated three months prior. No corresponding credit memo in the system. No offset on any subsequent invoice.
The vendor had received their product back and continued billing at full price. See how credit recovery works.
How We Recovered It
We built a credit memo with the Metrc transfer data: package IDs, quantities, wholesale values, transfer date, reason for return. Sent it to the vendor's AP team. The vendor verified the return against their own Metrc records — they could see the transfer in too — approved the credit, and we applied $1,847 against their next open invoice. ShelfSpace paid the net balance.
This is how it should work every time a return happens. Compliance closes the loop in Metrc. AP closes the loop on the money. The problem is that most dispensaries only do the first half. See another credit recovery example.
Why Returns Don't Become Credits
The return and the credit live in completely different workflows. Metrc handles compliance — product tracking. AP handles money — invoices, credits, payments. When a dispensary returns product, the compliance team processes it in Metrc. But nobody tells the AP team — or there is no AP team.
The credit memo requires someone to pull the Metrc data, calculate the value, build the document, and send it to the vendor. That "someone" usually doesn't exist. For a full breakdown of how we track returns and credits in cannabis, see our guide.
- Compliance and AP are siloed. The person processing the return in Metrc isn't the person handling invoices. There's no handoff, no trigger, no workflow connecting the two.
- Credit memos require effort. You need Metrc transfer data, package IDs, wholesale values, and a formal document. Most dispensaries don't have a process for building one.
- Vendors don't remind you. The vendor got their product back. They're not going to call you and say "hey, you forgot to ask us for $1,847." The credit only exists if you create it.
The Result
$1,847 recovered from one return, one vendor. But the bigger finding: this dispensary had processed dozens of returns over the prior year. None had credit memos filed. The total unrecovered return credits exceeded $14,000. We filed them all in the first 30 days.
"The return was in Metrc. The credit was in nobody's system. That's $1,847 the dispensary was owed and would have never seen."
If you're processing returns in Metrc but not creating credit memos, you're leaving money on the table every time product goes back to a vendor. Start with a free evaluation — we'll pull your Metrc return data and show you every credit that's been left unfiled.