States and refusals

A request is one customer asking to send back one or more lines of one order. It carries a state of its own, which answers a single question: have you agreed to this return. Where each item is in your warehouse stays OpenCart's own return status, which you may rename and delete freely — Returns Portal never nominates one of those.

What a request may be

State	What it means
submitted	The customer has asked and nobody has decided. This is the only state the Needs a decision tab holds, and the only one a customer may cancel from.
approved	You have agreed to take it back. The slip loses its NOT YET APPROVED overprint and the request waits for the parcel.
rejected	You refused it. The quantity is released, so the customer may ask again for the same lines.
cancelled	It was withdrawn — by the customer, or by you on their behalf. The quantity is released.
closed	The parcel arrived and the request is settled. Accepted lines stay held against the order, so nothing can be returned twice.

What may happen to it, and who may do it

From	To	Who
submitted	approved	you, from Sales > Return Requests, the Approve automatically setting, running the same code you would, an integrator's system, over the extension's API
submitted	rejected	you, from Sales > Return Requests, an integrator's system, over the extension's API
submitted	cancelled	the customer, from the storefront, you, from Sales > Return Requests, an integrator's system, over the extension's API
approved	rejected	you, from Sales > Return Requests, an integrator's system, over the extension's API
approved	closed	you, from Sales > Return Requests, an integrator's system, over the extension's API

Every state not listed in the From column is final: rejected, cancelled, closed are where a request stops. There is no un-reject and no re-open, and that is forced rather than chosen — a rejection releases the quantity, so by the time anybody wanted to reverse one, a second request may already have consumed it.

What a line may carry

You decide a request line by line, in one action. Each line ends up with one of these:

Verdict	What it means
pending	Nobody has decided this line, which is only ever true of a submitted request.
approved	You will take this line back. It holds its quantity against the order.
rejected	You refused this line. Its quantity is released, so the customer may ask again for it.

Refusing every line rejects the request; approving at least one approves it. A request is never half-decided.

What the customer asked for

Resolution	What it means
refund	The customer wants their money back. Returns Portal moves no money for this: it is a note of what they asked for.
credit	The customer wants store credit. This is the one resolution the extension can act on, with one click or automatically.
exchange	The customer wants a replacement. Returns Portal records the request and does not create an order — every screen calls it an exchange requested.

Why a line may not be sent back

Reason	What the customer sees
status_not_eligible	The order is not in one of the statuses you allow returns from. Refuses the whole order, and is shown once above the line list.
window_expired	The return window closed. Refuses the whole order, and is shown once above the line list.
excluded	You excluded this product, or a category above it. Shown on the line, with your own exclusion notice beside it.
fully_returned	Every unit of this line has already been asked back — through the portal, or through any return already recorded against the order.
eligible	Nothing refuses this line. It carries a quantity picker from 1 to whatever is left.

Every line of the order is shown either way. A line that may not come back is greyed with its reason printed on it, because a line that simply vanished is a customer emailing you to ask where their item went.