Walmart and Kroger Deductions Office Hours

hi everyone um my name is Ali Truong I'm the content coordinator here at supplier Wiki and today we have joining us like I mentioned before mountain bike extraordinaire and deductions Guru I don't know if Eric would claim that title but I will give it to him we're going to be talking about um deductions today and if you've joined us before you might think that today's content is going to be a little different we're trying to give room for all of our suppliers who join us to ask questions ask questions so we're going to run through pretty quickly the parameters of what we're talking about today so what are deductions and then we're going to open it up for Eric to answer some questions so with that if you're new and you're not sure exactly who Supply Pike is we are a software company that helps cpgs maximize their cash flow and um something Stacy if you join who is a pretty much our our figurehead for our web webinars she always says um we would love to see your company's logo up here because we're just excited when we get to help um suppliers win back their time and money and Eric you've been here I don't know more than five years maybe so I don't know if you have anything you wanted to add here yeah it's uh it's been really exciting to fight back I know probably a lot of you guys on the call have have been aware of us for a while but just get into to grow this company by helping suppliers like really you know it's not just something we say it's really the culture here um you know it's exciting to us to get to work with now over a few hundred uh different suppliers helping improve business and demystifying Retail and helping you grow business it's uh it's really rewarding it definitely is um and with that we'll go ahead and get into defining the parameters of what deductions are so what is a deduction what are we talking about today deductions happen when a retailer only pays for a portion of the supplier's invoice so why why would Walmart or Target be paying for only a portion of your invoice they essentially um are signaling to suppliers that a retailer has an issue with the invoice and so then it is the supplier's responsibility to either accept that yes okay we take responsibility we were in the wrong here or dispute because there was an issue or um the retailer doesn't really have the full story of um applying the the deduction the two overarching categories of deductions are claims deductions which is going to be the majority of um deductions that suppliers are seeing so the Retailer's claim is as hurting that the suppliers invoice is incorrect like I mentioned earlier and then earn deductions so these can be similar to an order allowance and a supplier will give a retailer a discount and this can be a good thing in some cases um Eric do you have anything that you'd like to add here as well yeah I think that's you know a good summary of sort of the two types uh typically a claim like that is going to be unexpected whereas those uh or going earned deductions here oftentimes you expect these um but how they come across if they're coming across as a deduction essentially means that uh you having an agreement in place to give that discount on an invoice you just didn't include it on the invoice so the Retailer's taking it if you're seeing both if you gave them the discount on the invoice and you received a deduction for it that's a problem and you know we can definitely talk more about that today awesome thank you for that um and then what are we not talking about today so AP deductions and AR accounts payable and accounts receivable are kind of in different buckets and that's how we view them at Supply Pike So today we're not talking about counts receivable fines and you might also call those otif compliance fines those file into that bucket as well as swept compliance fines but please stay tuned as we do more of these office hours we're definitely doing one on swep and we're definitely going to do an office hours on otiff so if you have questions for those they're not for today but save them for um the coming weeks so with that I will open up the floodgates for questions and um let's see what we've got going on here um before we start Eric could you maybe give us a rundown of some of the Walmart deductions the main categories I'm talking like shortages and Etc yeah absolutely so um yeah I figure we'll probably talk a lot about Walmart today but you know other retailers are certainly on the table and really across retailers you're going to see the same general categories of common deductions so Ali you mentioned one that's really common and that's shortages and typically you know that's the example I give is you invoice the retailer for 10 cases and the retailer says I only received five cases so they're only going to pay you for five cases and the five they're not paying you for would be a deduction or withholding from that invoice payment so that's by far one of the most common categories that we see with the suppliers we work with other common categories would be things like pricing discrepancies so the price on the invoice does not match what the retailer expected allowances which we alluded to at the beginning or you know earned deductions as I said sometimes those are expected usually those are expected that's essentially an agreement with the retailer in your contract with that retailer to give a discount in certain scenarios and another common category that at least at Walmart we see lumped into that deduction that accounts payable deduction bucket kind of oddly enough is returns so goods were returned by the consumer or you know damaged out by the retailer for one reason or another those will actually come across as what we call Accounts Payable deductions as well even though typically unless it's like damaged out at the warehouse typically the retailer can't match that up to a specific purchase order and therefore invoice so those are kind of an odd deck but kind of fall into that accounts payable bucket at Walmart at least gotcha that was a very comprehensive overview I appreciate that um and not to zoom out too much but a question that I have been considering is deductions are a pretty new space when it comes to the software that retailers are using um their own apps as well as other apps like Supply podcast deductions Navigator what do you see that space looking like in the next couple of years yeah so I mean I think any supplier will tell you deductions have been around for for a while I know supplier has been fighting these for for years and years I would say really within the past few years there there has been a greater awareness um I think retailers have gotten a little more serious about their deductions programs and we've seen that bear out in how you know basically the tech that retailers are putting in place to help them manage their deductions programs so new dispute portals new processes um you know things like that something that I'm really proud that Supply Pike has been kind of you know leading the charge with over the past few years is democratizing some of the information behind what's going on with these deductions what they mean um you know I know when we first got into this space several years ago there really wasn't a whole lot of information retailers didn't publish a lot of detail on their deductions programs and there just wasn't that much information available to for suppliers to really understand what was going on so you either had to have been doing it for 20 years or no one who did so yeah we've been really pushing to make that kind of information more accessible and easy to understand looking forward into the future really we're seeing more of the same so you know usually when I talk about this space um you know I consider it a macro level what's happening in retail and you have your large retailers where competition is really heating up you know Walmart and Amazon you know engaged in you know really hot competition um with that we're going to see these types of programs continue to be really important to the retailers along with compliance programs especially which I know isn't the topic for today but you know retailers are looking to be competitive in any way that they can and anything that they think is going to drive efficiency in their business is going to get a lot of attention from them foreign yeah I'm I'm just really excited to see as the space grows um how suppliers this process gets made easier because right now it's definitely convoluted I think as retailers to try and figure it out um but yeah your call to supply bike not to make this a a sales pitch but I love uh the word you use the democratizing so super exciting um other questions what is the best way to get an explanation for a deduction if you can't look up the claim on apis yeah so that's a great question and that's one we hear a lot it sounds like this is uh specifically about Walmart for aposting Walmart's accounts payable inquiry system the application where you can view a different Financial info um that does happen uh where we see deductions withheld from a check that don't have a claim record in that apis app where you can go find more information about it we call these invoice based deductions if you're disputing them in apdp you actually have to dispute them by an invoice because there's not a claim an apdp to dispute um and as far as getting back up on those it can be tough two things I'll say some of the most common versions of these that we see are what we would call reducts where you have received say a shortage deduction like a code 22 at Walmart and you've disputed it and it's been approved and paid back but then Walmart reducts it under a different code when that happens those deductions won't have a claim created so you won't have that normal source of backup information the only thing you'll have is on the check line where that deduction is withheld you'll have a microphone number and this is literally a microphone lookup number and and there's a form that you can fill out if you search in retail link I believe it's called the backup request form you can search there and provide that microphone number and request more backup on that and they should be able to provide it and that's typically the best way to go about getting back up for that the other thing I'll say is if it is a reduct like I mentioned there should be a previous invoice or a previous invoice a previous claim as well for the original deduction and that will usually give you some information like kind of at least in the ballpark you know what item are we talking about that was considered short or something like that um so those are the two things I would look at thank you for that it's a lot of dot stop to connect on your own as a supplier so empathize that that's pretty frustrating um one thing I want to throw out there is you know as we're going through this today um you know a big thing like I said at the beginning that we love to do here at Supply bike is we're connecting suppliers we work with hundreds of suppliers and you know we don't claim any special knowledge ourselves we bring together the knowledge of you guys and and sort of democratize that and make it available so as you guys uh if you're sitting there on on the webinar and you have some thoughts on hey here's what we see with our business throw it in the chat and you know let's share it with the community and get more info out there yes I second that Eric um I think some of the richest insights we get is just learning from how our suppliers are doing things and um helping them when it doesn't work or cheering them on when it does work so yes please put anything in the chat if you um if something's worked for you or you have commentary we'd love to like hear your experience um let's cue up another question how could a supplier get backup information on a um 94 claims so I'm thinking code 94 would that be more helpful yep yep so code 94 is for um you know merchandise return or damaged effective merchandise um so typically when you receive one of those I think I was mentioning earlier those aren't going to be tied to a specific order or invoice you know often in 94 will be for a customer returning an item to the store for example when that happens uh the Walmart is not doing a great job of saying well this specific item came from this specific order they just don't have a way to match that up understandably and so it's hard to say you know which order which invoice that went with um for backup information there should be a claim detail for just about every code 94 that you receive in apis so with an apis if you search for that claim by the claim number you should be able to pull down a little bit more detail there typically that claim document will include things like an item number hopefully although we do see some code 94s that don't have an item number the item that was returned as well as the cost uh the unit cost of that that item that was returned so that's where I would start um if you're still not getting info on that you could try providing a microphone number to to hunt that down um that's that's usually where we start looking for returns info awesome um how you doing Eric you ready for more questions yeah and I actually see another question on that topic of uh codes in the 90s so yeah maybe we can can roll straight into that while we're on the topic yeah that's that's where I was headed so for Walmart what material um what material to show the buyer to dispute code 90 deductions there's usually no backup and recalls are combined with returns so it's hard to know if it's legit or not so codes in the 90s there's several in here usually recalls or unsellable merchandise will come across as a code 92. whereas like code 94s are what I was describing earlier on the previous question for damage defectives you know things like that so recalls should be within that 92 bucket and you know in our experience typically when we are working with a supplier who has a bunch of code 92s typically they're like yep we had a recall they're pretty aware of it um and you know they're able to see that come across in that scenario where you've had that recall you should know as far you know kind of the extent of that and so pulling down that there's code 92s and what was excuse me what was deducted for those uh you should hopefully it can help match up here's what we received in these 92 deductions dollars funds and here's what the extent of that recall should have been um there's usually no backup how do we know if it's legit or not so I'll speak kind of in generality since we're kind of addressing all of code 90s but usually when you're trying to determine if a code in the 90s is legit or not the first place to start is on your supplier agreement so how returns and effective merchandise are handled is going to depend on what was negotiated within your supplier agreement governing you know that line of business um so that's where I would start typically we see suppliers either say you know merchandise has to be returned to us or no merchandise does not have to be returned to us and some other details around that um so when determining if you should have gotten a deduction for this or not uh you know I look at a few things if your agreement specifies that merchandise has to be returned to you did you actually receive that merchandise back if you didn't you could dispute that charge and say hey I'm supposed to get this back I shouldn't have gotten a deduction without getting product back um another common area that we see some success in disputing these is around the actual cost of the deduction so comparing the unit cost of what was returned and therefore deducted so they deducted 5.50 for you know this item to what that actual unit cost for that item is so that you know if for example that actual item only costs you know four dollars and fifty cents and they deducted five dollars and fifty cents you have potentially a window to go after the difference there so we've seen some suppliers haven't seen some success with that as well um another uh thing that I would just recommend as you're researching those returns deductions in decision support in retail link for Walmart there is a report where you can pull down returns information everything from store level returns what's sitting at the return center what the return center has you know shipped back to you in terms of quantities and DSs isn't going to provide you actual dollars for returns and that's where you'd have to go into apish to get that kind of financial information but can give you an idea of the types of returns that have been initiated so a few places to go dig around for some information on those returns I will say as far as disputing these goes it can be a challenge to prove code 90s you know codes in the 90s to prove that they were invalid to the point that you're able to get repaid on them definitely see some suppliers getting repaid um but it really varies and that's why for these types of deductions Supply Pike we typically don't give a hey we see this kind of recovery rate you know this percentage of disputes getting paid back because it varies so much uh depending on your agreement with Walmart so it really depends on your business gotcha sure I left some stuff out of that answer if anybody's got more to add on that throw it in the chat yes and I did want to add because we do get this question a lot if it's been a minute since you looked at your supplier agreement that can be found in retail Link in your profile so you click down for that drop down menu um and it's got lots of information that it can be helpful if you haven't refreshed yourself on that in a while so thank you for that Eric um another question we had a failure to consolidate deduction which is a claim 43. can you explain a little bit about what this is and how a path to dispute this Eric yeah so code 43s are pretty much always either accounts receivable deductions meaning they're coming from Walmart's accounts receivable team as a chargeback um not necessarily being without from a specific invoice or they're going to come from an auditor as a post audit so we've been hearing more and more about these recently it falls a little bit outside of the the realm of deductions that we're talking about today but um these failure to consolidate chargebacks essentially mean that Walmart expected this Freight to be shipped differently um and uh you know they incur cost to move that Freight that they feel that they should not have incurred um you should be able to find more backup on these typically by going into a portal that Walmart makes available called high radius which is where all the accounts receivable chargebacks are going to come across you'll see notification photos you can dispute them there um but yeah and that's where I would start hunting for those you're not going to see any info on these in apis or apdb because that's all Walmart's accounts payable um let's start in the AR portal which is called high radius for Walmart and and dig around there but um it's a Walmart expected shipping one way and it was shipped differently typically it should have been shipped prepaid to a consolidator and they're saying that that did not occur gotcha and you did mention Eric that this is more of an uh accounts receivable chargeback so maybe could we talk about the how we can distinguish um an AP in an AR deduction or charge back um yeah within the software because to me if I was just looking at that's a code 43 so it looks like a deduction yeah it's a great question so you will see some uh some chargebacks or deductions being withheld from your checks with a code like 43 um but that doesn't necessarily mean they're AP deductions related to one of your invoices they could also be ar chargebacks so something I recommend all suppliers to is go ahead and if you don't already get access to that account or to that high radius portal their accounts receivable portal for Walmart it's you know every supplier should have access it's free and you know it's part of doing business with Walmart and that's where you'll see all of these AR chargebacks come across any of these codes um the way AR chargebacks work is typically they will show up in that portal first in about 30 days before they're withheld from a check so when you see it taken from a check that means it's existed for a little while and then it got got taken from a check another way that you can identify AR chargebacks on a check is by looking at the invoice number so typically AR chargeback is going to start with a Walmart generated invoice number that begins with seven zero zero zero uh is kind of a dead giveaway the invoice number is going to look different from your internal and Voice number sequence and then the other thing to look for on a check is the store number typically they'll come from store number 9000 which is another giveaway that it's an AR chargeback gotcha that's super helpful thank you I'm learning things on here as well I appreciate that um a call back to another question was about a code 90 um and the supplier mentioned that they didn't have any recalls um so Eric to me that kind of seems like okay if there aren't any recalls then just go ahead and dispute that if it seems funky try and dispute it already or do you have a different response to that um occasionally it's not uh a code 92's uh might not be specifically for a recall I could also pertain to overstocked merchandise so that would be kind of my first thought there um and yeah with the current retailer climate we've definitely seen retailers trying to trim down Overstock merchandise Walmart and certainly Target um so that would be my first thought is it could have fallen into that bucket without knowing a little more detail it would be tough to say for sure yeah um and this is just a general to everyone on the call if you do have very specific um questions that we aren't able to get to please we'll put our emails at the end of the um the hour please reach out to our teams we would love to help figure out questions and hopefully get disputes resolved and improved and get money back so um that would be a good a great place to start like Eric mentioned but um yeah sorry that we weren't able to maybe definitively answer that let's jump to another question um the here's a response that someone had to our our um code 43 it's not in high radius um so if it's not in high radius is there a way how would you try to find that Eric maybe we don't have the answer to that right now but where where would you start digging yeah if you're not seeing backup and higher radius what I mentioned before I'm assuming that means you've just seen it come across on a check deducted from a check probably for a fairly large dollar amount and given this type of code um it should have a microfilm number with that check line so that's where I would go ahead and submit a backup request for that microphone number to try to get more information um yeah the the only other thing I could think of yeah that's probably where I would start typically if it's coming from an auditor and you would have um you would have gotten an email notification and you know post audits probably a different process and typically won't have that code on a check line gotcha okay that's helpful too understand um interesting that one's puzzling me a little bit um one of our our suppliers on the call said that it does have a micro number a microfilm number on uh 43. so my question there would also be how long does that take like is that just sent to your email how did you know that you received that number if you're if you're looking at a Check Line not sure what it's for and it does have a microfilm number there um like I said in retail length there's a form I believe it's called the backup request form that at least it used to be I know we also linked to it from a help article on that in our help documentation for Supply Pike um so if you need that if you're not able to find it in retail link go ahead and reach out to us afterwards and we'll help you track that down but it's literally a PDF um that you can so out and send through email to Walmart it's not the best process um something else I'd be curious to try and this is just me speaking off the cuff I don't have any reason to to prove this but Walmart EBS which is the point of contact for most accounting related questions you could attempt to reach out to them submit a ticket through retail link and I forget the direct email address um you could attempt to reach out to them provide the microphone number and see if you get a response back there as well as far as how long it takes to get the backup request back to you um really just varies uh you know I would submit that backup request form and then if it were me I would also reach out to EBS EBS provides an email address it's in several places in retail link and they also have a phone number we hear suppliers say they have a lot better success getting a quick response if they call the phone number sometimes the emails can sit out there for a long time not getting answered what people don't read their emails as soon as you hit send yeah um thank you for answering that um I have a question specifically about Supply Pike um showing approved which seems to be approved for payment but it could mean that the deduction has been proved as legitimate yeah can supply Pike code the actual check payment differently so we could see what we can actually get a payment for Thomas I think I understand your question so I'll try to answer what I understand ask again if I if I didn't answer it for you but um sounds like you're asking about uh that scenario I mentioned earlier where occasionally Walmart will approve a dispute for a certain deduction and then reduct again under it you usually under a different reason code a common example would be you dispute a common shortage like a code 22 Walmart approves that dispute pays you back for the code 22 and then later we'll deduct again for that invoice number but with a different code like a code 15. um it's essentially what's happening in that scenario is Walmart is saying you're correct it was not a code 22 for you know Goods build not shipped it was a code 15 for you know a shortage within a pallet or you know a shrink wrapped pallet and so they'll read it up some like partial amount or the full amount under that other code um the way you're asking specifically about Supply bike software the way we display that is the original code 22 deduction that was disputed and approved we'll show that as approved and we'll show the new deduction the code 15 as having come in and if you haven't disputed it yet it'll show it's not disputed uh within the code 22 will show the check it was paid back on and showed that it was paid um so that's kind of how we handle those today um we have had some questions similar to yours on and just saying hey can I have some better visibility into the fact that this code 15 is a reduct of this you know code 22 so something that I know the team is looking into improving that experience to just draw a better line between those two but that's essentially how they're displayed in Supply bike software today we treat them as separate deductions in the app because they're technically separate deductions and you can jump back and forth between them by seeing other deductions related to that invoice but yeah I agree uh you know I think it would be cool for us to be able to draw that line a little more directly to see that specific one was a redefine yeah yeah thank you for that Eric I know you work uh super hard on making our products user friendly and um the best quality that we can produce so um I know that uh our team is hard at work at making it better every day just incrementally yeah and feedback like that is as you guys use the software for those of you on the call who are Supply by customers um you know we'd love to hear that kind of feedback especially you know when we're hearing something from multiple multiple multiple suppliers that's really valuable for us and like Ali said that team you know working on the Walmart product is and they're pushing code just about every day making small and large improvements to the product yeah I love it um we did have a question in the chat is there an internal receiving Walmart report that can help us dispute our shortage claim so I think what we're asking here is maybe um an app that would produce this kind of report in retail link yeah it's a great question so um disputing shortage deductions uh the gold standard when you're disputing a shortage is always if you have a shipping document the right type of document depending on how it was shipped collect or prepaid and you'll either need a bill of lighting or proof of delivery having that document showing that you in fact did not shortship and you should be repaid that's the gold standard um however we know how Freight Carriers and 3pls and all that work sometimes it's hard to hunt down that document um so Lee your question is there anywhere I can go to just a few what Walmart says that they received yes um so for the supply by customers out there we pull in this data into the application automatically from retail link there's several places actually that you can pull receiving data um a lot of people are familiar with like Nova or the order management system where you can go in search for a specific order and see what Walmart says they received for that order um in DSS that is an easier place to get kind of a list of multiple orders and you can go down to the line item level and see received quantities for uh you know orders and items within order so you can pull data from there now I will say they all seem to feed from the same back end data whether you're pulling it from Nova or DSS in the otiv app some of the data they present will include what they say they received um the the caution I always give suppliers is that data is not always accurate and I think I just saw a comment come through in that [Music] um yeah I do that effect so um the receiving data is not the gold standard for truth um it's applied by like I said we work with hundreds of suppliers so we've got to see a lot of types of data related to this specific issue what we typically see is um you know there are scenarios where the receiving data will show that something was received in full but you've still received a deduction for a shortage so it's very clearly contradicting itself that should be a layup deduction to dispute most typically those types of deductions will be Auto approved if you dispute it through Walmart's aptp portal because again on the back end Walmart system knows that goods were received in full and they owe you that money um so what I typically tell suppliers is receiving data is great when the data helps you like in that scenario I just described that's even better use it um it's not necessarily a replacement for a shipping document if it goes through a manual review oftentimes they're still going to ask you for the shipping document but the other thing the flip side of that coin is if that data shows a shortage for an item on on an order that you were deducted for that doesn't necessarily mean there was a shortage again we work with hundreds of suppliers every single day there are loads of deductions that Walmart claimed a shortage the data from DSS shows a shortage in the receiving but the supplier has a shipping document to prove that it was not short and that gets paid back um So within Supply Pike you know our algorithms for determining what's likely to be paid back or not we take all that into consideration um and you know again when the data helps you that's great that's a really good signal when the data do not help you that is not necessarily you know the end because we see those paid back all the time too I hope that answers your question that's pretty long-winded but yeah several places to get the data that was that's super interesting um and Eric maybe you can speak to this in your experience um this is kind of also in the comment that rivka made is um even some um shipping documents are not necessarily what Walmart wants so a trend I've seen and correct me if I'm wrong Walmart wants you to use their data to dispute oftentimes um how do you mitigate that if it's also kind of incorrect yeah it's a little bit backwards so in that scenario where Walmart wants their data to be used in a dispute typically is within the OTF World okay um so in otif you could have received a notif penalty for an order uh and you have shipping documents to show that it was shipped in full and maybe there was a shortage deduction on the AP side that you've disputed and has been paid back or Walmart on the AP side says yes you're in full if you try to use those shipping documents to dispute the odif fines sometimes Walmart will say sorry we don't accept shipping documents we need to see the data on the AP deduction side is kind of the inverse a lot of the time and to rivkress point um you know Walmart typically is going to say hey we have to have the shipping documents you know just showing us that numbers isn't going to prove anything um again on the Walmart side we still show the data we've provided as a you know a PDF that you can include with your dispute if you'd like um but we see mixed success with that uh where you know the data alone oftentimes is not going to be enough to put you over the I didn't get that dispute approved um kind of a tangent but on this topic of proof documentation for shortages um it's really common for a supplier to come to us and say hey we've got the shortage I don't have shipping document my carrier won't get one for me but I know that it was it's invalid and the data backed me up and showed that it should be invalid what do I do and in those scenarios I always encourage suppliers to dispute It Anyways um even if you don't have a TOD for one with Walmart at least they have automation on their side and a new dispute runs through that automation first to see basically if the retailer knows that your own money for that invoice and if you are it automatically gets approved and never even goes to a human being it doesn't matter what's attached to it so you know you always have a decent opportunity for that to happen but two you know if you have the data to back up your dispute um it's worth trying and there's no penalty for having a dispute denied it's better than just taking it on the chin and moving on got it um I'm just learning so much today I love it um I think rivka also added something to the point of if there's two versions of a pod our carrier has no shortage but the Walmart copy does how do you mitigate that difference um yeah and what might be causing it it's interesting um the most common scenario I'll say where I see this is typically the carriers providing something like a drop trailer stamp as proof of delivery um not sure if that's what's going on in this specific scenario or not but essentially the carrier drops off the trailer it's not unloaded at the time that they drop it off and so the proof of delivery that the carrier gets is proof that hey you dropped off some for this order whereas once that trailer is uploaded by the DC they'll have the DC Report with uh you know over shortened damaged um so you know that's a really common scenario where you don't have you know the actual accounts on Carrier pod you do on the warehouse um looks like a follow-up statement where you said nope uh referring to Warehouse stamp on to be alone interesting that's a weird one um so what I would do anytime uh that you have one proof from your carrier if it sounds like you're shipping prepaid and the DC is providing proof that it was short and Walmart's refusing to pay back that shortage those types of deductions should always get taken back to your carrier because essentially if your documentation the lading and pickup is the carrier saying yep we picked all of this up and here's you know what we were saying we delivered and the retailer is saying nope it was short um the carrier has taken over a responsibility for those goods and from for prepaid shipments when they pick it up from your doc so if there's a shortage claimed that the retailer won't pay back you up to dispute that with your carrier gotcha it's helpful to understand um sorry that that's happening that sounds very tricky um a strange one that there's a different version provided by the DC that's weird yes to me that even also seems like different information systems at Walmart or within the carrier aren't speaking to each other to have two versions of Truth so something else I will say um and we've seen this more and more over the past six months to a year especially kind of since the rollout and we're talking Walmart specifically here since the rollout of Walmart's new dispute portal um we've seen a lot of disputes initially be denied with denial reasons that just don't make a ton of sense and we've been encouraging suppliers to push back on those so when a dispute is denied you can challenge it again um challenge those again and we see a lot of those go through on the second you know second push so um you know if you are seeing some denials especially for reasons that make no sense at all definitely try them again and what what makes those second tribes a little bit more successful is it bringing data that's like look there are two pods and they don't match or what what would be helpful there um sometimes it's a little difficult to explain sometimes it's just the second attempts you know it gets a gets a different result which is a little bit maddening but um yeah sometimes when you push back uh what some suppliers will do is provide a little bit more detail in the comment what we've typically heard is on the first dispute submission attempt uh if it's being reviewed by a human oftentimes they don't look at your reason that you put for why you're disputing it whereas if you challenge something they're looking for any new attachments and any comments that you've added so add a comment you know with a little more color a little more detail and say no no here's what these documents are showing take another look and and try that Avenue gotcha it's helpful um let's see um I had something I wanted to to point out speaking of maddening things that happens um Mindy put in the question that she is a collect shipper and that they're supposed to have two years to dispute that have been denied because they're claiming a one-year limit on Carrier claims and I'm assuming this is for Walmart have you seen anything about that have any context there we have and So within and it's more than likely written into your supplier agreement for this vendor number that's collect where Walmart expects collect claims they typically say to be filed within nine months to 12 months of the claim date um the reason Walmart gives for that is because that's how long they have to take it back to the carrier since it's their carrier relationship and basically Walmart wouldn't try to pass those on to their carriers um so that's something that's been in place for a long time we didn't see it enforced uh all that frequently but we have been seeing it some more recently where if it's a shortage for a collect shipper over 12 months they might push back and say no and you have to file this within 12 months um you know that's different from virtually every other type of deduction or any type of deduction if you're a prepaid supplier where you have two years but I've double check your contract more than likely it's it's written in there in the section talking about your collect agreement with Walmart um yeah that's a tough one we have still seen a lot of collective buyers disputing getting disputes approved even if they are past that date but we have definitely seen Walmart take a firmer stance on that that time frame for some questions and you might not have an answer to this I'm just curious is there a reason why Walmart starts pushing one initiative versus another um like the carrier claims um you know this is one where I can't claim to be inside their head and know exactly what the thought process is my hunch would be um a lot of the ones that are getting paid back are ones where Walmart knows that it was you know mistake and there's you know dollars available that need you know are supposed to be paid on that invoice and so those will get paid ones where Walmart would want to take it back and dispute it with a carrier themselves or probably ones where they're going to push back and say no you know we can't go after the carriers just a hunch somebody correct me if if I'm wrong if you have other info there we won't get into this but some Walmart conspiracies because we also have um a uh attendee here who's saying that they think Walmart might be um altering them or make if they make a mistake correcting it later um and to that I would also just say something that I've heard our team say over and over again if you can document things early and often have your own evidence folder in case things like that are happening or versions of Truth look different I'm not exactly sure if you have any insight into that Eric but um that's just what I've mostly heard as a best practice I mean documentation is always your friend um kind of regardless of what specifically we're talking about um one other thing that I'll say and and just take it with a grain of salt you know if you were having a consistent chronic issues like this where it's happening frequently it's adding up to you know really a material dollar amount um yeah I always am a proponent of you know consider your your company's relationship with your buyer with your Merchant at Walmart but if you can take an aggregate not you know one by one by one all the time but if you can take an Aggregate and say hey this is what's been happening over the past six months we've gotten 50 of these it's a hundred thousand dollars it's you know having a material impact on our business and here's the proof why this shouldn't be happening I'm not getting any help through the dispute portal you know it might be time to attempt to Surf attempt to surface that conversation with your buyer um you know they want you to be successful you know so that Walmart is successful um kind of we're all on the same team here I know every every supplier's relationship with their buyer looks a little bit different so your mileage may vary but um you know I always say depending on that relationship it may not hurt to at least have that conversation with your buyer and and sort of bring that to their attention may or may not get anywhere but sometimes that's sort of your your last recourse or you know the final path to pursue gotcha okay um that's helpful and yeah talking to your buyer we do have some resources um that I can link later um when we follow up with everyone um it's just helpful when you're preparing for conversations like that that could be that could be difficult um let's jump to another question we have about um five minutes and then we will um hop to the end here but what does Walmart um I'm assuming consider a valid P pod from FedEx or UPS ground shipments yeah so FedEx and UPS ground typically what they're looking for um I believe for both of these um you should be able to get a signed copy of a proof of delivery a digital signature um so I'm I'm drawing deep into the recesses of my brain on this one uh but I believe typically with FedEx and UPS you can search for a tracking number and pull back a basic proof of delivery which includes really basic information that says like Yep this one was delivered that but not a whole lot other than that whereas if you're actually logged into your FedEx account or your UPS account and then you search for a tracking number or an order number like a reference number that is related to your account number you'll get a different document back and it's a more detailed version of the proof of delivery and it includes the things that Walmart cares about like the actual signature if there was one as well as the reference number which should be your proof of your purchase order number so that you can tie it back to hey that this delivery was for this order um so those are typically you know on any proof of delivery that's what they care about but that's a mistake that I see some suppliers make where they'll provide like a FedEx Tracking page that just says like check mark delivered without a whole lot of additional detail and that's usually not going to get you very far they'll ask for the signed copy so make sure you're signed in we're providing I think with UPS you need to be signed into the account that's related to the shipment and with FedEx you need to provide the account number that was related to the shipment so either the account number for you as the shipper if you're the shipper or the account number for the payer or the bill to party which would be you if you're prepaid which would be Walmart if you're shipping collect uh small personal so yeah going off memory there I think that's accurate I know uh Supply makes some information available on that as well um but that's the most common mistake I see is providing the generic copy of the proof of delivery or like the tracking page rather than the official document which we'll have with both FedEx and UPS it's usually it's a digital signature a little image on the bottom of that document and it'll have things like the ship to address and the reference numbers perfect um super helpful I had a question about the um Supply pipe product deduction Navigator back to um code 92s and 94s most of the new claims are now showing the PO Walmart has a notification claim PDF that does not have the PO listed so where would Supply Pike maybe be getting that information for that PO so uh within deductions Navigator we pull that information from potentially a few different places typically and we see this happen sometimes for the notification of claim document Eddie that you're referencing does not have a purchase order number on it but the claim record in apis like in Walmart's retailing app does have Akio so we're pulling it from there and so that's I would imagine what's going on in that scenario what we typically see though is those po numbers oftentimes aren't related to an actual like order that you fulfilled in the past it's more of a Walmart generated account number related to that return so we have seen a lot of suppliers where the PO number associated with a return like that and they're kind of looking through their records like we never shipped you know anything for an order with this number um so that would be why so yeah we should be pulling that number from uh apis even if it's not on the claim document gotcha that's helpful that's what I love about Supply bike is it pulls a lot of the information from different um apps in Walmart versus being able to see them all having like I don't know six or so tabs open so that's my commentary um and uh I wanted to address this Walmart Sam's question and it's totally okay if uh Eric you're not you're not familiar with Sam's um we can always follow up on this one but I did want to just share it with our our attendees here Walmart Sam's is collect shipment for the supplier they are experiencing Walmart Sam's Club diverting the loads to Sam's ambient x stock making several deliveries to the DC ending up a shortage is anybody else having this problem here on the call and uh Eric if you have any um advice here yeah I would bet everybody else is having that problem unfortunately crosstalks are kind of a black hole for a lot of these types of shortages um really really common Alice so um I guess if it makes you feel any better I'd say You're Not Alone um and this is where you know I would really go back to some of the best practices that we recommend and a lot of it was you know pulled directly from what Walmart even recommends just in how you load and ship goods uh through crosstalk facilities um I will say it's not going to solve all your problems unfortunately even if you're doing everything right and this still happens but we always encourage suppliers do everything you can to you know set yourself up for success make it as hard as possible for the retailer to receive Goods incorrectly so things like you know really clear labeling on your palettes you know if you're adding if you're doing multiple POS on a palette having those slip sheets um you know making sure cases are unique and identifiable for the items within um you know all those types of things that are only going to help they may may not totally solve the problem though but yeah crosstalks have been a big source of pain I'm sure I'm sure that's going to be something shared by a lot of suppliers unfortunately yes but we are our team here at Supply Pike is always willing to help um so with that I'm going to take us to the end here thank you all for tuning in um we really appreciate all your questions not only does that help us make our products better but we also learn from that and we love facilitating learning here in the supplier Community like I said my name is Ali trong and this is Eric Smith if you have any questions for us further we would love to talk these are our real emails or you can find us at supplypike.com we did talk a little bit about this product so I'm going to hand it over to Eric here as people might be logging off to talk through deductions Navigator just really quick yeah we touched on it briefly throughout the call I saw questions from several current Supply back customers so um hey to you guys great to Great to talk um but deductions Navigator is a software solution that Supply bike has built specifically for helping suppliers manage a lot of the questions and problems that we talked about today um and sort of the 10 second version is we ingest data from a whole bunch of different sources from retailers from carriers we stitch all of that together to give you a really clear picture of how deductions are affecting your business and then we provide Automation and that will actually help you submit disputes in just a single click or even totally automatically based on you know logic that you can control so some really cool stuff going on with Productions navigator that really takes a ton of the burden off of managing and how deductions are affecting business awesome thank you so much Eric and for everyone here on the call have a great rest of your Tuesday and we hope to see you guys again take care [Music]