You can track Container Deposit Scheme (CDS) schemes in Breww, such as a bottle or keg return scheme. These schemes can be set up and managed by going to Containers -> Actions & tools -> Deposit schemes.
Setting up a scheme
When you create a CDS, you can choose which container types (e.g. bottles & cans) the scheme applies to, as well as the rules that the order must fit into for the scheme to apply. This allows you, for example, to only apply a scheme to customers in some countries or only to some types of customers (e.g. only to trade customers).
The cost to you
If the scheme has been mandated by a government, local authority, or similar, then there will typically be a cost to you for each container. In this case, you should make sure you enter this into the "Cost per container" box. Breww will keep track of this cost for you and will account for it within your margin reports, much like it does for beer duty and ensure your profits are not over-inflated.
The charge you make to your customers
Regardless of whether the scheme has a cost to you, you can choose to pass a charge onto your customers (or not to). There is an input box labelled as "Charge per customer", which is used to enter the charge that you want to pass onto your customers.
There are two ways to pass this charge on to your customers. You can either bundle the charge into your product's selling price or get Breww to automatically calculate it and add it on the order/invoice for you. If you get Breww to add it on the invoice, it will be shown below the products a bit like how a delivery charge is shown.
You may choose to pass on the charge by including it in your product's pricing, and also want to highlight its value on the invoice. To do this, please enter the charge into the "Charge per container" box and tick the "Charge is already bundled into product pricing" box - this will show the value on its own line on the invoice, but it won't increase the value of the order.
If the "Charge is already bundled into product pricing" box isn't ticked, then the charge will increase the value of the order - in which case you need to enter the applicable VAT/tax rate and the accountancy account to link the value with (if you've integrated your accounting package).
Excluding some customers from charges, but including them in reporting
It's possible to exclude customers/invoices from the scheme entirely using rules, but sometimes, you need to include them in the scheme, but don't want to pass on a charge (even if you do to most customers). A good example of this is when you "sell" stock to your own taproom/bar and need to track the number of deposits taken but still want to have a zero-value invoice (for the invoice to yourself).
To solve this, once you have created a scheme, you can add customers to a section labelled as "Customers to exclude from charge but include in reporting". Doing so will effectively switch the "Charge per container" from the usual value to zero for just these customers.
Returning container deposits to your customers
This allows for returning both government-mandated schemes as well as running your own keg deposit scheme (for example) to ensure that your customers return kegs to you once they're empty. Reducing the number of lost kegs is a huge benefit of running a scheme like this. Simply enable this option on the scheme to get started.
Once this has been enabled, when you invoice an order that has returnable deposits on it, you will be able to log how many of these containers have been returned to you. You can mark the containers as returned manually, or we recommend with tracked containers returning them in your normal workflow.
Once containers have been returned, you will have the option to return deposits to your customer. If you are looking at a new order for the customer, just above the list of products, you will see a Return container deposits button. This will allow you to apply a previous deposit to this order as a reduction in the value of this order.
If the customer doesn't plan to order again, instead of giving them a "discount" on their next order, you can create a credit note for them and apply the container deposit to the credit note to record that the money has been refunded back to the customer. This is applied in the same way as it's done from an order.
When viewing the main page for a customer account, you can go to the Containers & uplift orders tab. From this tab, you can see their outstanding (incomplete) deposits - those where you haven't had all containers returned or you haven't given them back all their deposits yet. You can also click through to see a full history of all their returnable deposits.
If you need to return deposits that were taken before you switched to Breww (so Breww doesn't know they are outstanding), these are known as Unrecorded deposits. You should be able to use the "Return unrecorded deposits" button.
Returning container deposits on an order being delivered
To return the deposits on the order being delivered, simply click Collect containers from the order's delivery page in the Breww app and scan the collected containers. If any deposits were taken on the collected containers, they will be immediately returned on the order being delivered.
The order must be either 'Draft' or 'Confirmed', so if "Automatically invoice orders when their delivery is dispatched" is enabled (Settings -> Delivery settings), you will need to disable it to take advantage of this feature (we recommend keeping "Automatically invoice orders when their delivery is completed" enabled).
Breww Trade Store orders
The Breww Trade Store will automatically pick up on applicable deposit schemes and show any charges during the online checkout process. This will show as per your settings (such as itemising out a charge bundled into a product price or adding an additional charge).
Ecommerce/POS integration orders
In the options for a Container Deposit Scheme, there is an Apply to integration imported orders setting that controls whether the scheme is applied to orders imported from your webshop, POS, or other sales platform integrations.
When this setting is disabled (the default), the deposit scheme is skipped entirely for integration-imported orders. This means no deposits will be created on those orders — not even for reporting purposes. If you are seeing deposits on manually created orders but not on webshop orders, this setting is the most likely cause.
When this setting is enabled, Breww will apply the deposit scheme to integration-imported orders. To avoid double-charging (since the prices on these orders are set by the external platform), Breww automatically treats the deposit as already included in the product pricing, regardless of your other settings. This means the deposit will be itemised on the invoice for transparency and reporting, but it will not increase the order value.
This also means that features like Customers to exclude from charge but include in reporting will only take effect on integration orders when this setting is enabled, because the scheme must be applied to the order before any exclusion rules can be considered.
If you need to track container deposits on your webshop or POS orders — whether you want to charge for them or simply include them in your deposit reporting — make sure this setting is enabled on the relevant deposit scheme.
Reporting
When a scheme has been enabled, it will automatically be applied to matching orders. You can run a report to view the deposits that you have taken, even if you didn't pass a charge onto your customers.
You can view this report by heading to Containers -> Actions & tools -> Deposit schemes. Next, click to view the deposit scheme in question and finally click Reports in the top-right.
