UnilyticThe returns evidence checklist
What to photograph and record on every returned unit, so the claim gets paid instead of reduced. Set it up in about 30 minutes, on a phone you already own.
These are the numbers from one Amazon India seller, roughly 300 FBA SKUs and 500 FBM SKUs, running this exact process. One seller, not an average. Your damage rate and your recovery will be different.
- A phone with a camera
- Somewhere to put files - Drive, or a shared folder
- One person at the returns table
- About 30 minutes
Why claims come back reduced
When a customer returns a unit, Amazon books it back in under a disposition - sellable, defective, damaged, or carrier damaged. That disposition decides what you are owed. But the unit arrives at your table days later, and by then the only person who can say what condition it was really in is whoever opened the box.
Most returns desks record that in a shared spreadsheet. Someone types the barcode into a cell with a status and a date, then sends the file to whoever files the claims. It looks like a working system. It falls apart the moment Amazon asks what the damage was, because a row in a spreadsheet is a claim, and a photo taken at the table is proof.
Evidence is what gets a claim paid. Not effort.
The five shots
Every unit graded as damaged gets these five photographs, in this order, before it moves anywhere. Five is not arbitrary - it is the smallest set that answers every question Amazon asks back.
The outer box or bag as it arrived, sealed, with the shipping label readable.
The label close up. The LPN or removal order ID must be legible on its own.
The unit in the packaging, opened but untouched.
The damage itself, close, in focus, with something for scale if it is small.
The unit whole, against a plain surface, so its identity is not in doubt.
If your team takes one photo, it will be shot 4. That is the one that fails on its own, because nothing in it proves which unit it was or that it came from Amazon.
Set it up in 30 minutes
Make the folder rule
5 minOne folder per day, named by date. Inside it, one folder per unit, named with the LPN or removal order ID. Photos go straight in. No renaming later, because later never happens.
returns/
2026-09-02/
[LPN-OR-REMOVAL-ID]/
1-box.jpg 2-label.jpg 3-in-packaging.jpg
4-damage.jpg 5-unit.jpgPrint the grading card
5 minTape this at the returns table. The person opening boxes should never have to decide what a word means. Copy it as it is.
GRADE EVERY UNIT AS ONE OF: SELLABLE - resealable, no marks, goes back to stock DAMAGED - unit itself is broken, cracked, stained, incomplete PACK-DAMAGED - unit fine, retail packaging destroyed WRONG-ITEM - not our SKU, or not what the order says EMPTY - box arrived without the unit in it IF DAMAGED, PACK-DAMAGED, WRONG-ITEM OR EMPTY -> TAKE THE FIVE SHOTS
Record one row per unit
10 minThese are the only columns that matter. Anything else you add is for you, not for the claim. Paste this as your header row.
date_opened | lpn_or_removal_id | order_id | sku | asin | grade | reason_seen | usable_qty | photos_taken | claim_type | filed_on | amount_expected | amount_received | status
amount_expected is your own estimate of what the unit is worth to you. Recording it before you file is what lets you notice a shortfall afterwards. Without that column you will accept whatever arrives.
File against the right claim type
10 minPick the type from what you graded, not from what feels closest. Filing a damaged unit as a lost unit is the most common reason a claim is closed without payment.
Which claim, and when
The evidence column below is the minimum that decides each claim - it is not a shopping list. Take all five shots on every unit you grade as anything other than sellable, every time. Which claim you end up filing often changes after you have looked at the unit properly, and a shot you did not take is not one you can go back for once the box is in the bin.
Scroll the table sideways for the remaining columns.
| What you saw | File as | Evidence that decides it | Window |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unit broken or stained | Customer damaged return | Shots 2, 4, 5 together | Check current policy |
| Box arrived empty | Return not received | Shots 1, 2, plus box weight if you have it | Check current policy |
| Refund issued, unit never came back | Refunded not returned | Order ID and your inbound log | Check current policy |
| Wrong SKU sent back | Wrong item returned | Shots 2 and 5, both SKUs visible | Check current policy |
| Paid less than the unit is worth | Reimbursement shortfall | Your amount_expected column | Check current policy |
Claim windows change, and they differ by claim type and marketplace. Read the current figure in Seller Central rather than trusting a number in a guide, including this one. What does not change is that a claim filed without the photographs is the one that gets reduced.
Track the outcome, not the filing
Filing a claim feels like the finish line. It is not. Update the status column every time something comes back, and use exactly three words, so you can count them:
PAID IN FULL PAID SHORT DENIED
The middle one is the point of the whole exercise. A claim paid short still shows as resolved in Seller Central, so unless you wrote down what you expected, you will never see the gap. Count your PAID SHORT rows at the end of the month and you will know whether this is worth doing at your volume.
The amount_expected column is your own estimate, not a figure Amazon has agreed to. Amazon reimburses against a cost it assumes on your behalf, and that assumption is usually below what the unit cost you to make, so a claim can be paid in full by Amazon's arithmetic and still leave you short.
Record what you expected anyway. You cannot argue a shortfall you never wrote down.
The same thing, without the typing
Everything above is deliberately tool-free, and it works. What it costs you is re-typing: the barcode into a cell, the SKU off the label, the order number out of Seller Central, the claim status out of an email, and the photos out of somebody's camera roll into a folder that has to be named correctly at four in the afternoon on a day when 200 units came back. That is where returns desks quietly stop doing this - not at the decision, at the typing.
Unilytic is the version of this process with the typing removed. It is what I built for my father's returns desk, and it is the same four steps.
Scroll the table sideways for the remaining columns.
| The step | What Unilytic does | What it removes |
|---|---|---|
| The folder rule | Photos attach to the unit itself - up to five of them, which is exactly the five shots. | Folder naming, and evidence that lives in a camera roll |
| The grading card | The grades are the screen: fine, damaged in transit, defective, wrong item, missing parts - then whether it is still usable, and how many units are. | Arguments about what a word means |
| One row per unit | The scan writes the row. Scan the airway bill for a customer return, or the box and then each licence plate for a removal order, and the order, the SKU and the units expected inside come from Amazon's own data. | Typing barcodes and SKUs, and booking a package in twice |
| The right claim type | Every damaged unit carries a claim status - applied for, received, under-reimbursed, denied, postponed, or already reimbursed - and where Amazon promised to reimburse by a date, it emails a reminder before that date passes. | Claims filed and then forgotten |
Any phone is the scanner, so there is no hardware to buy. And if someone else opens your boxes, the scanning screen is its own role: a Return Scanner sees the scan page and the returns log and nothing else - not your margins, not your Amazon connection, not your billing - and cannot delete a record, only ask a manager to. That is worth saying plainly, because the alternative most warehouses settle for is a shared login, and that is a real reason returns desks stay on paper.
It does not file the claim for you. Amazon's forms are still Amazon's forms and the judgement in step 4 is still yours - what changes is that the evidence is already assembled by the time you get there. The warehouse workspace is on every plan, including the free one.