Every distributor and manufacturer in India has a return window — typically 60 to 90 days before a medicine's expiry date. Return stock within that window and you recover 50 to 80 percent of its cost. Miss it by even a week and the loss is entirely yours. Most pharmacies miss it not because they are careless, but because they have no system alerting them in time.
Step 1 — Know your return windows by supplier
Different distributors have different return policies. Some allow returns up to 90 days before expiry, others only 30. Before you can act, you need to know each supplier's window. Create a simple reference list — supplier name, return window in days, and the contact person for returns. Keep this somewhere your team can access it quickly.
Step 2 — Generate your near-expiry report
In MedExpiry, go to your inventory and filter by expiry date. Export medicines expiring in the next 90 days as a CSV. This gives you a complete picture of stock at risk — medicine name, batch number, quantity, expiry date, and agent name all in one file.
Step 3 — Match stock to supplier return windows
Cross-reference your near-expiry list against your supplier return windows. For each medicine, calculate whether it is still within the return period. If a medicine expires in 45 days and your distributor requires 60 days' notice, you have already missed the window — but if it expires in 80 days and the window is 60 days, you have 20 days left to act.
Step 4 — Contact distributors and initiate returns
Reach out to each distributor with your return list — medicine name, batch number, quantity, and expiry date. Most distributors accept return requests by email or WhatsApp. Get written confirmation of the return and keep it on file. Do not hand over stock without a return acknowledgment in writing.
Step 5 — Log the return in MedExpiry
Once the return is confirmed, update your inventory in MedExpiry to reflect the removed stock. This keeps your records accurate and ensures the returned medicines do not appear as active stock. Log the date, quantity returned, and the distributor contact for each return — this is your audit trail.
How to avoid missing windows in the future
The root problem is visibility. If you do not know which medicines are approaching their return window right now, you will keep missing them. MedExpiry flags near-expiry stock automatically — so instead of a monthly scramble, your team sees at-risk medicines every day and can act while there is still time. Prevention is always cheaper than the write-off.