Thanks for sharing those details, James!
Just as an FYI, development stores have the features of the Advanced plan
I was able to replicate your exact scenario. What’s happening is when you select “don’t restock” in the POS app, you’re prompted with this warning that the item will NOT be restocked at any location.
This is why no disposition record gets created in the API. It’s treated as explicitly not being processed at any specific location for inventory purposes.
As a possible workaround, you can use the staffMember field from the order transactions or sales agreements to identify who processed the return, which can help you track down which location it was processed at.
Alternatively, I’d suggest a different approach: choose restock on all returns through POS (which will properly populate the disposition records with location data), then use the Admin API to adjust that inventory to a separate state like “damaged” or “returned” using inventory adjustments. This way you get the location tracking you need while still maintaining proper inventory states for your business logic.