Purchases,Sales Returns & Carriage on Purchases and Sales.

I will give the double entry first and then give the explanation. The explanation might help you to remember when to debit or credit.

Purchases Returns/Return of goods purchased in cash or on credit/Return Outwards
Dr Cash/Creditor
Cr Purchases Returns

Consider the double when the business is purchasing goods in cash or on credit
Dr Purchases Account
Cr Cash/Creditor

After a purchasing transaction, wee need to debit the Purchases Account as goods are entering the business and credit the cash account as the business is losing money. If the purchasing transaction was on credit, then the business owe money to the supplier/creditor, thus we need to credit his account.

When the business is returning goods bought in cash to his supplier, the business will return him cash equivalent to the value of the goods returned returned thus the business will get money and we need to debit the cash account. If the initial transaction was on credit, then when we are returning goods to the supplier, what happens is that the business now owes less money to his supplier thus we need to debit the creditor's account.

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Sales Returns/Return of goods sold in cash or on credit/Return Inwards
Dr Sales Returns
Cr Cash/Debtor

Consider the double when the business is selling goods in cash or on credit
Dr Cash/Debtor
Cr Sales

When goods that were previously sold to a customer on a cash basis is returned to the business by that customer, then the business must pay back to the customer in cash the value of the goods returned. Thus, the business is losing money, therefore we credit our cash account. If the customer bought the goods on credit, when he returns the goods to the business, he owes less money to the business now, therefore, we credit his account to reduce this balance.
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Carriage on Purchases/Carriage Inwards
Dr Carriage Inwards
Cr Cash

Carriage on Sales/Carriage Outwards
Dr Carriage Outwards
Cr Cash

Both are expenses.
However, Carriage Inwards is added to Purchases in the Trading Account to get the cost of sales whereas Carriage Outwards is treated as a normal expense in the Profit and Loss Account.
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