Sale or Return and Direct to Customer Supplier FAQs

Suppliers who supply Goods For Resale products to our John Lewis brand under a SOR “Sale or Return” or D2C “Direct to Customer” agreement fall into this category. Remaining suppliers who provide GFR products to us under wholesale terms do not fall into this SOR or D2C classification.

Under the SOR or D2C terms, sale or return activity for your supplier account is recorded on the John Lewis systems on a weekly basis, each week John Lewis will issue you with a "Sale or Return" report on Coupa Supplier Portal (CSP) and a purchase order for this weekly value.
● Suppliers who hold a self-bill agreement in this category do not need to convert this purchase order to an invoice on Coupa; this will be done automatically. Invoices, credit notes and debit notes will all be automated for self-billed suppliers. You will be able to locate these documents in your Coupa Supplier Portal account.
● Suppliers who hold a non self-bill agreement in this category will need to complete the guidance to convert this weekly purchase order into an invoice, on Coupa Supplier Portal, for approval and payment. Please see the guide for ‘Converting a D2C or SOR PO into an Invoice’ here.

Coupa Supplier Portal is part of the e-invoicing solution ‘Coupa’ which supports our suppliers to complete account functions such as: viewing weekly sale or return data, submitting invoices or credit notes, inquiring on payment dates and purchase orders, viewing remittance copies and completing other e-invoicing activity functions.

Currently only suppliers that supply GFR products to our John Lewis brand are compatible with becoming a SOR or D2C supplier. If you wish to explore the eligibility of your account becoming SOR or D2C, please contact your buyer or other business contact to discuss this with them.

Under a self-billing agreement John Lewis PLC will track weekly transaction activity registered under your SOR or D2C supplier account that you hold with us and prepare the associated invoice for automatic payment.

Weekly sales data will be available to you detailing an exact breakdown of the transaction activity in the weekly period. A purchase order will be generated on Coupa, matching the value of this weekly transaction activity which is automatically processed for approval and scheduled for payment to you.

As a registered self-billing supplier you will not need to complete the manual steps of converting the weekly issued purchase order into an invoice on Coupa; this will be done automatically.

In order to be considered as a potential self-billing supplier you must meet all of the below eligibility requirements. If you do not meet all of these requirements you will not be eligible to enter into a self-billing agreement with John Lewis and must continue to trade with us under non
self-billing terms.

Self-Billing Eligibility Criteria
● You must hold an active SOR (Sale or Return) or D2C (Direct to Customer) supplier account with John Lewis PLC.

● You must hold a valid UK VAT registration which is registered under your company, this VAT registration must also be held by us, on your SOR or D2C supplier account records. Our finance team will validate your provided VAT number to ensure this meets the
requirements.

● You must agree not to issue any sales invoices to John Lewis PLC for the duration of your self-billing agreement on your SOR or D2C supplier account.

● You may hold a separate wholesale supplier account with John Lewis alongside a SOR or D2C self-bill supplier account, however you must not submit SOR or D2C invoices to John Lewis on your wholesale supplier account. Your wholesale supplier account must be used for wholesale invoices only. Submission of self-bill SOR or D2C invoices to John Lewis on your wholesale supplier account will be a breach of your self-bill agreement.

● You must accept John Lewis PLC raising invoices, on your behalf, on your SOR or D2C supplier account for the duration of the self-billing agreement.

● You must notify John Lewis PLC immediately should your company change VAT number, cease to be VAT registered, transfer your business as a going concern, sell individual parts or the entirety of your business.

● You must sign and keep a copy of the self-bill agreement which you enter into with John Lewis PLC.

If you are identified as a supplier that may be eligible to enter into a self-bill agreement with us our Finance Service Centre team will reach out to you to request you to consider this. Ensure that you meet the full eligibility criteria on this FAQ page before proceeding with this.

Once you have fully completed the self-billing agreement form provided by our finance team simply return this to us by following the instructions detailed in your received communication. Once submitted our finance team will be able to review your application.

Please allow up to 10 working days for your self-billing form to be processed by our Finance Service Centre team, once reviewed we will be in contact with you to confirm the outcome of your application.

Your self-billing agreement will last 12 calendar months from the date your agreement is approved by our Finance team and becomes live. Our Finance team will contact you each year, in advance of the expiry of your self-billing agreement, for renewal (as long as you continue to meet the eligibility criteria). If you are unable to continue under a self-billing agreement you will return to a non self-billing SOR or D2C supplier account classification.

You are able to hold multiple supplier account(s) with us, however you must have a separate account per business model (SOR, D2C SOR, Wholesale) for self-billing purposes.

To calculate the SPTI deduction rate percentage, please use the formula:
(Sale value xVAT) - JLP Cost of sales) / Total Sales Value.
JLP deduction = Total Gross sales x SPTI deduction rate
E.g. Sales Value xVAT (80) minus the Cost of sales (42) which is 38 divided by the Total Sales Value (92) then your SPTI rate as a percentage would be 41%.

Weekly sale and return data will be provided on Coupa in the form of an issued purchase order and attached Excel report on a weekly basis. This downloadable Excel sheet will reflect sale and return activity within the last weekly period.

You can continue to view your SOR or DC sales data on EDI, however please be advised this may differ from the weekly sales data issued to you on Coupa. Further details explaining this possible variance can be found on this FAQ page under the question 'I disagree with a weekly sales report I have received, who should I contact to raise this?'.

If you are a non self-bill supplier you will need to convert your issued PO to an invoice on a weekly basis on Coupa, you will have six months from the date your PO is issued to complete this action before this purchase order closes and is required to be reopened or replaced. PO’s will soft close at six months and require reopening by JLP, four months following this date the PO will hard close, at this point your PO will need to be replaced. This action should be completed as soon as your purchase order is issued to you on Coupa to avoid delays to invoice payment.

Credit notes can be submitted against invoices that have been previously submitted to us for your SOR or D2C non self-bill supplier account, please login to your Coupa account and follow our 'Creating a SOR or D2C Credit Note’ guide, found here.

In order to update the VAT status on your SOR or D2C supplier account you will need to submit a change of details request to our Finance Service Centre team by following the steps on our ‘Request account changes as a UK-based supplier for John Lewis’ guide.
Without the correct VAT details being held on your supplier account VAT will not be able to be applied to your invoices when submitted to us on Coupa.

The SPTI rate held on your supplier account is shown on your issued weekly purchase order invoice lines, a full guide giving a full breakdown of your weekly sale and return data report and purchase orders can be found on our ‘Understanding SOR Sales Data Report and Invoice Lines’ guide which is found here.

We would advise that you promptly convert your purchase order into an invoice to avoid any payment delays. You must ensure that you submit this invoice within six months of the weekly PO being issued, to avoid this PO automatically closing.

On your invoice there will be a ‘True Payment Due Date’, this will update to show the estimated date of when your invoice is due to be paid. Once your invoice has been approved for payment, it will be paid to you in line with the payment terms held on your supplier account records. Your invoice should auto-approve unless you amend the invoice line totals to an amount greater than the issued PO.
Payments are made on your nominated weekly payment day with payment usually received 2-3 working days following receipt of your remittance advice. Please note: non self-bill suppliers will need to convert issued purchase orders into an invoice, before this can be approved and scheduled for payment.

Please contact your buyer in the first instance to raise this dispute.

Please contact your buyer in the first instance to raise this query.

Please contact your buyer in the first instance to raise this dispute.

In order to check the invoice status on your supplier account, please reference our invoice status guide where you will be able to find a full breakdown of invoice status your invoice may show.

Please contact your buyer in the first instance. Please ensure you have the following required information available: product code, store location and your supplier account details.

Variances between your weekly Coupa issued sales data report and EDI run sales report can be caused by time differences where these reports are run. Sales activity omitted from your Coupa sales data report but included in your EDI sales report at the end of the weekly period will likely be after this weekly cut-off and should appear on your following week’s Coupa sales data.
Variances can also be caused if you have more than one supplier account with us which is also set up for EDI. The data from all of your accounts can be transmitted on one file, so please check this.

If you still believe your Coupa issued weekly sales report is incorrect please contact your buyer to raise this dispute with them, ensuring you provide the dissection numbers where this variance has
occurred. Once contacted your buyer will be able to investigate this with the relevant teams. 

In the first instance please fully reconcile the individual location sale or return totals for each PO invoice line detailed on your Excel sales data against the location PO line. Details on how to do this can be found in our ‘Understanding SOR Sales Data Report and Invoice Lines’ guide, here.
Please note, you should reconcile both your positive (sales transactions) and negative (return transactions) orders in order to match the excel attachment. If you still do not believe the invoice line location totals match the weekly sales data amount please contact your buyer to ask them to investigate this discrepancy with the relevant team.

Please contact your buyer in the first instance ensuring you provide affected supplier account details for this to be investigated further.