Hi Jim,

It's fairly simple to create an activity in Odoo to remind a user to follow-up on something.  This can be done with an Automated Action.  The limitation is that it would have to be a fixed number of days / weeks / months after the Sales Order.

Or if you have Odoo Studio you can add fields to indicate:

1. That the product is expected back 
2. A date when it is expected back

Then you can filter on the SO or SO lines that need follow-up and update it when it is received.

Thank you both for your responses. I cannot comment on each post for some reason, so i will have to post an answer.

this should give me enough information that i need in order to allow me to do both. if i can work out how to mark as answer, then i would choose @Jaideep, as its certainly the best route. thankyou, i am slowly learning the terminology to search for.