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).
Choosing whether deposit charges count as revenue
When Breww adds the deposit charge to the order for you (rather than it being bundled into your product pricing), you can choose whether these charges should be counted as revenue in your sales and margin reporting, using the Count deposit charges as revenue option on the scheme. Many breweries prefer not to count deposits as revenue, as the money is usually returned to the customer (or passed on to a scheme operator) and can otherwise inflate sales and margin figures.
If this option is ticked, deposit charges are included in your sales figures.
If this option is unticked, deposit charges are still charged to your customers and are still included in each order's totals, tax and amount due - nothing changes on the invoice itself, for your customers, or in your accounting integration. However, the charges won't be counted as sales revenue in Breww's reporting, so your sales and margin figures reflect only your true revenue.
This applies anywhere Breww treats an order's net value as revenue, which includes:
-
The All sales report
-
The Total sales by customer report
-
The margin reports (Margin by customer and product, Margin by customer type, Margin by customer, and Margin by invoice)
-
The revenue charts on your dashboard (including the credit notes chart)
-
The Value field when reporting on orders in the Aggregate Report Builder and Raw Data Explorer
Product-level reports (such as Total sales by product or Products sold (order lines)) aren't affected either way, because a deposit charge is added to the order as a whole rather than to a product line. See Differences between product-level and invoice-level reports for more on this distinction.
A few points to be aware of:
-
Newly created schemes don't count deposit charges as revenue by default.
-
Deposit returns always follow the classification of the original deposit charge, so a charge and its return will always net off against each other in your reports.
-
This option isn't available when Charge is already bundled into product pricing is ticked - in that case, the deposit money is part of your product prices, so it always counts as revenue.
-
Orders imported from your ecommerce/POS integrations are unaffected - their deposit charges are always treated as already included in the product pricing (see the section on integration orders below).
-
The classification is captured as each deposit charge is created, so changing this option only affects orders created afterwards. To change existing orders, see the next section on updating historical orders.
-
Non-revenue deposit charges don't count towards the Total value condition in your delivery rules, so turning this option off can change which orders meet a value threshold there.
-
When reporting on orders/invoices in the Raw Data Explorer, there is a Total non-revenue field showing the non-revenue amount on each order. An order's net value, total non-revenue and tax always add up to its total.
Updating historical orders
If you change the Count deposit charges as revenue option and would like your existing orders to be reported in the same way, look for the history icon (a clock with an anticlockwise arrow) on the Count deposit charges as revenue card on the deposit scheme's page. This icon appears whenever some of your existing orders' deposit charges don't match the scheme's current setting - hover over it and you'll see "Some existing orders do not match this setting. Reclassify their deposit charges." Click it to bring those orders in line (this requires brewery admin permission). If every existing order already matches the setting, the icon isn't shown, as there's nothing to reclassify.
Clicking the icon opens the Reclassify historical deposit charges window. This reclassifies the scheme's existing deposit charges (and their returns) to match the scheme's current revenue option, moving their amounts between each order's net value and non-revenue total. If the scheme counts deposit charges as revenue, the amounts move into each order's net value; if it doesn't, they move out of it. Either way, order totals, tax and amounts due are not changed, so there is no impact on your customers or your accounting. Tick the confirmation box and click Reclassify deposit charges to start.
The reclassification runs in the background, and you'll see its progress on screen. It can take a while on large accounts. Orders imported from integrations are never modified.
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.
Note: Deposits can't be returned onto an order that was imported from an ecommerce/POS integration, or onto a free sample order. These orders' totals are controlled by the external platform (or are deliberately zero-value), so a deposit refund added to them wouldn't be reflected in the order's totals. You won't see the
Return container depositsbutton on those orders, and they won't be offered in the "Return unrecorded deposits" order list. To refund a deposit that was taken on an imported order, either apply it to a Breww-created order for that customer or raise a credit note instead.
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.
