A customer bought a thing, or paid a deposit on a thing, but then brought it back for a refund or cancelled the order - and therefore needed a refund.

Our accounts department want to check if the original purchase happened in one VAT quarter, and the refund happened in a later VAT quarter.

Also, the customer changed his mind and wanted to order it again.

Also also, we might want to check whether this customer habitually places orders and then cancels orders.

Purchase history is where we go looking for answers to this kind of stuff, but it's not there!