I'm just starting out with Zen Cart and am wondering if there's an existing way to handle core return credits (IE - Replacement part costs $1500, but customer gets $500 off if they return original broken part).

The preferred flow would be to give the option to charge the customer the discounted price, then flag the order as a core return with 30 days to receive the core, or an additional charge for the difference would be levied.

An alternate flow would be to charge the customer full price, then do a partial refund if they return the core within 30 days.

We expect 90% uptake on core returns, so the first option would require less frequent back-end work.

I expect that we'll be stuck with just offering 2 SKUs of the particular items (with/without core with appropriate pricing for each) and flagging the order somehow to be manually followed up on. Is that our best/only option?