Everything you need to know about the ZRS invoice

After joining Zalando Return Solutions (ZRS), you will receive a ZRS invoice by email on a monthly basis, typically within the first 5 working days of the month.  

This invoice contains total charges and itemised statements for all return events of the previous calendar month from every market you are live in. A return event refers to each return ZRS processes for you. You will receive this ZRS invoice in addition to any other monthly invoices from ZFS, Zalando Partner Program etc.

The invoiced amount must be transferred to the recipients specified in the ZRS invoice within the time frame listed in your contract. Please refer to your ZRS contract for the payment terms. Any change in cost will be communicated to you prior to implementation, as per your ZRS contract. 

Let’s deep dive now into the ZRS Pure and the ZRS Plus invoices and see what they look like.

If you are live with the ZRS Pure service, you will be invoiced only for the ZRS Return shipping cost. You will receive an email containing a PDF with the ZRS Pure invoice, a two page document that will look like this:

On page one, you will find an overview of the invoice, with invoice number, invoice date, invoice category (“ZRS Return Shipping”), the total amount, and instructions for payment. On page two, you will find the total amount invoiced according to sales channel and quantity. 

The total amount listed in the ZRS pure invoice is the sum of every shipment containing your articles, each unique shipment order number, received at a Zalando return centre per day. 

The email containing your ZRS Pure invoice also contains a CSV file with the itemised statement.

Here is an example of what this looks like:

The CSV file will contain all returns that are invoiced. Here you can see all shipments (with their unique shipping order number) containing your articles that were received at Zalando Return Center that particular month. 

Definitions of terms used in this CSV file: 

• Accounting_Year = current year

• Accounting_Month = month in which the invoice is issued for the services of the previous month

• Event_Type = the ZRS Service invoiced, according to your contract

• Date_of_Origin = date of shipment received and processed in the Zalando Return Center

• Units = Number of units in the shipment

• Order_Number = Order Number used to identify the customer order

• Shipment_Number = Shipment Number used to identify the return shipment

• EAN = number used to identify the item

• Price = the service price for the ZRS service, as per your contract 

• Amount = number of shipments/items invoiced 

• Currency = currency, as per your sales channel

ZRS Plus combines the best of ZRS Pure and ZFS through streamlined customer experience and partner convenience. For more details, please refer to this article. 

A ZRS Plus partner is therefore invoiced for:

• The total amount of shipping orders (ZRS Plus Return Shipping) and

• The total amount of articles being processed at Zalando sites to make them offerable online to the next customer (ZRS Plus Items Processing). 

Every month you will receive an email containing a PDF with the ZRS Plus invoice, a two-page document that will look like this:

On page one, you will find an overview of the invoice, with invoice number, invoice date, invoice category (“ZRS Return Shipping”), the total amount, and instructions for payment.

On page two, you will find the total amount invoiced according to sales channel and quantity. The total amount listed in the ZRS pure invoice is the sum of every shipment containing your articles, each unique shipment order number, received at a Zalando return centre per day. 

The same email also contains a CSV file with the itemised statement. Here you can easily see the unique shipping order numbers, referring to your articles and the article EANs that were received at a Zalando Return Center that particular month.