Have you ever gone to Sam’s Club and made many purchases to misplace your receipt? It can be frustrating, especially if you need to make a return at the store and now you do not have proof of purchase. It can feel like there is nothing you can do.

Fortunately, Sam’s Clubs keeps digital copies of your receipts for up to two and a half years for online purchases and six months for digital copies of in-store purchases.

Retaining these receipts relieves club members if they overbought an item with limited shelf life or that does not fit inside their home because it is in bulk. Receipt tracking also helps those who manage the family budget for tracking purposes and price tracking. Additionally, keeping a receipt can help with cashback points from apps like Fetch or Ibotta.

Reasons why you would need to look up an older receipt:

1. You need to return an item
2. You do not remember what you paid for that the time
3. A product needs to be replaced, and you want to see if there was a price change
4. You lost the original and need it for record-keeping and budgeting
5. A receipt needs to be provided to an accounting team to document write-off expenses
6. If it is furniture or electronics, submission of receipt is requested by insurance to file a claim of its value

Find your receipt online through their app or website

The easiest way to recover a receipt is by visiting the Sam’s Club website and signing in to get to your account page. Getting to their account page can be accomplished by signing in and using the upper ribbon to get to the My Account page. There, the store keeps all receipts on a page called history. Here, Sam’s Club stores all its receipts for that particular member. So, looking up a receipt online can help the customer with every reason listed above.

The consumer can easily filter the information on that page to get what they want. Filtering information makes it more straightforward and quicker for users to navigate. For example, receipts available on this page include both in-store and online purchases.

When the correct receipt is found, the user can click on it and hit print. When the user selects to print, the system will consider this a valid receipt.

Suppose the consumer needs a receipt older than two and a half years for an online purchase (or six months for in-store purchase). In that case, they can submit a special request online with their membership number, full name, and timeframe.

If they have the item they are looking for, Sam’s Club recommends submitting that as well, as it will help staff find the digital copy. Each submission for a receipt older than two and a half years can take roughly 7- 10 days for Sam’s Club to process the request.

Sam’s Club only retains copies of receipts up to eight years from purchase, so if a much older receipt is needed, the store will not be able to help you. However, visiting them online or via the app is the easiest way to find what you are looking for and does not require a trip to the store.

Check your email to see if it is a membership renewal

Sam’s Club says that if a membership purchase is completed online, it will not reflect on their website as a purchase. Instead, members will receive purchase confirmation through their provided email addresses.

They can use that when entering the store to pick up a physical card. In order to recover a receipt for proving the purchase of a membership, it is best to save the email when it is received, but if that is not possible, then checking the trash or spam folder of your inbox will help.

Memberships purchased in-store will also not have a physical receipt as they are emailed. Since May 2022, Sam’s Club has placed an autorenewal policy for its current members, so they do not have to worry about coming to the store or meeting a particular deadline. These auto-renewals are also emailed to the customer, which serves as its receipt.

In-Club Purchases

As mentioned before, if the purchase was made in the store, Sam’s Club will only have up to 6 months of history that is readily available through purchase history on its app or website. However, suppose you are actively returning an item. In that case, it is best to go inside the store to the customer service department to complete your return.

Receipts here look just like the one that was received at the store during the time of purchase. The member can open the image on their phone or computer and look at the upper right corner, where they will see a download link.

If an older receipt is needed, the member will need to contact customer care and allow 7 to 10 business days for them to process the request.

Let’s say there is a more complicated issue regarding a return or printing of a receipt. The customer service department may bring in a manager to assist in that case. However, if the receipt is much older, the customer care team might be unable to recover the information.

Pharmacy Purchases

Sam’s Club has in-store pharmacies to service their members covered by insurance. The store retains prior receipts and medical expense statements showing prescription transactions. Members can find receipts for the Pharmacy department if they are no older than two years old.

Since not all members use the pharmacy, the department requires a separate account to begin using Sam’s Club Pharmacies. If a receipt from the pharmacy is needed, visiting the Pharmacy department at the physical store can print out a copy for you.

Contacting Sam’s Club

In the unfortunate event that you need to contact the store, they can be contacted in the following ways:

• Contact Sam’s Club at (888) 746-7726
• Completing the info box at https://help.samsclub.com/app/ask. The form will take you to a page to collect information for their team to help you.

What to know

Sam’s Club offers helpful resources to its members when they need a prior purchase receipt. They have made it as easy as going online or on their app and downloading the corresponding receipt. If the information is older, a team member will search for the information for you.