Reason code

The coded field on a hold, rejection, return or credit that says why it happened, and the input to cause attribution.

DefinitionThe coded field on a hold, rejection, return or credit that says why it happened, and the input to cause attribution.

A reason code is the value a system records against a failed row: why a customs entry was held, a claim rejected, a delivery refused, a credit issued. Codes are specific to each system and rarely mean what a reader assumes, so the mapping from code to cause is written once per source and kept with the data. Rows with no reason code are counted as their own row, never dropped and never guessed.

How it is used

The coded field a system records against a hold, rejection, return or credit. A mapping from each code to a cause is written once per source system and kept with the data; rows with no code are counted as their own row.

Example

A returns file has fourteen codes. Mapped, they reduce to four causes: wrong item picked, damaged in transit, ordered in error by the customer, and quality. Six percent of rows have no code.

Where it goes wrong

Codes read by their labels. Other is the most used code in most systems and means the field was mandatory.

Articles that use this term

Data quality and reconciliation

Credit notes and returns in revenue measures: net of what, and when

How credit notes, returns and rebates enter the revenue measures without breaking them: the rule that every measure is net of credits, the period a credit belongs to, the original invoice's or the credit's, the credit-to-original link that lets a return reduce the right customer, product and rep, uncoded credits as their own leak, and the identity that gross less credits equals the ledger's net figure on every roll-up.

16 Sept 20262 min read Board and management reporting · Shipping and logistics

Customs holds per customer: the entries that stopped, and the data that stopped them

How a forwarder or customs broker measures customs exceptions from its entry data: entries held per customer and per lane, hold rate against the broker's own norm, days held, the reason codes, the share caused by the customer's own data, missing commodity codes, wrong values, incomplete descriptions, against the share caused by the broker or the authority, the cost in storage and delay, and the customer conversation about the fields that stop their freight.

16 Sept 20262 min read Board and management reporting · FMCG and CPG brands

Retailer compliance chargebacks by retailer and reason: the deductions that are really a process

How a CPG brand reads its retailer chargebacks and deductions from the remittance and deduction files: chargebacks by retailer, by reason code and by distribution centre, the share that is disputable against the brand's own shipment and delivery records, the reasons that recur at one retailer and nowhere else, the cost per case shipped by retailer, and the two conversations, the brand's own logistics and the retailer's compliance team, that the split points to.

16 Sept 20263 min read Board and management reporting

Revenue leakage: the seven places it hides in a B2B ledger

Seven kinds of revenue leakage that a B2B company's own ledger and contracts can find: unagreed discounts, contracted price not applied, unbilled deliveries, credits without a cause, contracted volume not ordered, early payment for no discount, and services delivered outside the scope. For each, the join that finds it, the identity that proves the figure, and a worked total that most companies would not believe until they saw the lines.

16 Sept 20263 min read Alternatives and comparisons · Shipping and logistics

How to choose analytics software for shipping and logistics: questions, data and traps

How forwarders should choose analytics software: start from the questions, check the data you hold, ask vendors ten questions, avoid the traps.

24 Sept 20264 min read Board and management reporting · FMCG and CPG brands

Chargebacks on ten deductions: the whole arithmetic on one page

The complete retailer chargeback split on ten deductions from two retailers, small enough to check by hand: the retailer's reason code mapped to the brand's reason, the join to the shipment and proof-of-delivery records, valid where the records agree, disputable where they contradict, unmatched where no shipment is found, cost per case by retailer, the reason that recurs at one retailer, and the identity that deductions equal the three states and that remittance plus deductions equals invoiced, so a reader can reproduce every figure and then run it on their own deduction file.

17 Sept 20263 min read