Deductions vs Compliance Fines

"10_deductions_vs_compliance_fines 

[00:00:00] Melodie Hays: Today we're talking about deductions versus compliance fines. We have lovely Ryan Petty with us here today. Okay. So Ryan, he is our senior product manager over here at SupplyPike. He leads our OTIF Radar product, a lot of the product development for that, as well as our, just our deduction solution. 

So he is the perfect person to compare deductions versus compliance fines for us here today. We're super excited to have them. If you wouldn't mind going to the next slide. Okay, today we are going to be talking about all things compliance and deductions with Walmart. So we're going to do a quick overview, then dive into Walmart AP deductions versus OTIF fines versus SQEP, and then do some examples for each of those different ways that you can get fined at Walmart. 

So at the end, we are going to reserve some time to talk about questions. But if you have been with us here today, you know that we're getting a lot of questions for a lot of these different webinars. So please submit your questions in early and we will take those as they're coming in, but also make sure that we reserve some time. 

All right. So just if this is the first time you've joined us here today will you get a copy of the slide deck? Yes, you will. You actually get a copy of the entire recording and slide deck of the entire conference for today. So you'll see that in your inbox. It'll take us about three to four business days. 

What is the best way to ask a question? It's going to be those two little chat bubbles down at the bottom that say Q&A. Please use that, the Q&A function rather than the chat function, just because it is difficult when there's a lot of questions going in there, a lot of discussion for us to parse through those. 

So best way to do it is with the Q&A. All right, who is SupplyPike? So if you guys are not familiar, if you haven't joined us here today SupplyPike, we are a software company and we build solutions to help you recover revenue that may have been lost due to retailers. So retailers, eaten into your bottom line we help you recover that and, make sure that your revenue is staying nice and juicy, like it should be. So we've worked with over 400+ different CPGs. We've helped recover over 25 billion in retail impact. And we have actually been in over 50 different product categories. I think that number is actually a little bit more now since we're in multiple different retailers, Walmart, Target, Amazon, Kroger, all of the fun ones. 

These are some of the brands we work with, but, and yeah, that is SupplyPike. And now I'm going to hand it over to you, Ryan.  

[00:02:30] Ryan Petty: Yeah. All right. Congrats to everyone who's been sticking around. Hopefully we'll provide some value here with especially the compliance side, but we are going to cover some AP deductions, but we'll try to focus a little bit more on compliance. 

Since we've covered a bit more of deductions today, but to start, we want to talk about what are the common types of chargebacks from Walmart. So when you have deductions, these are code based. Walmart's AP team is going to pay one of your invoices and they feel they need to withhold payment of that invoice or partial payment for various reasons. 

Compliance fines, on the other hand, are typically related to supply chain performance where it's more punitive and Walmart is fining you for not performing well enough for all kinds of reasons now so we'll get into sort of the details of that as we go forward. So again, just to recap, deductions are where Walmart is subtracting from your payment, the payment of your invoice from Walmart. 

So they're subtracting. Compliance fines are bills that they are creating. They're creating their own invoices and issuing those invoices to you. Typically those are not paid back. They're balanced against future payments and reduce future payments as well. So similar, but they are invoices from Walmart to start. 

Chargebacks, so in these two categories, deductions and compliance fines, on the deduction side, you typically have things like allowances, price discrepancies merchandise related codes, short shipping codes, all those types of, two, two digit codes that we've talked about earlier today whereas on the compliance fine side, you We have these wonderful chargebacks from the OTIF compliance program and the new SQEP or however you prefer to say it, program that's now finding you for other parts of that supply chain process. 

Some more details on this just to make sure it's crystal clear, the deductions are coming off a payment of your invoice these deductions can be disputed and they can be recovered. Again, some examples of these codes 22, 24, 25 but there, many dozens of codes to keep track of. 

These are disputed through Walmart's Accounts Payable Dispute Portal, or APDP. Compliance fines, on the other hand, are invoices from Walmart. And they can be anything from how you package and ship the product to whether it was received on time or in full. You can get SQEP and OTIF fines on the same POs. 

You can even have deductions on the same PO. So these really can stack up on top of each other. With OTIF and SQEP, they can now be disputed in high radius. You may also have some success, especially with OTIF disputing with your buyer but we'll talk more about the details of that and which to use a little bit later. 

Okay, so disputing Walmart deductions. We just want to highlight a few apps in retail link that are most important. So number one, accounting scorecard gives you a barometer of your invoices that you've sent to Walmart and statuses. Invoice accuracy, some of those other details in that accounting scorecard. 

A P I S or APIS is where you can view invoices and claims, which are essentially those deductions against your invoices. You've got payment data, invoice data, claim data. The checks that are ACT actually issued. All of that is in that APIS app or APIS APDP, another accounts payable app, accounts payable dispute portal. 

That is where you now go to dispute those AP deductions. It used to be done in an app called DirectCommerce. Now it is all done in APDP to dispute those AP deductions. On that note, what do you need to dispute? This definitely differs a lot across the types of deductions, especially when Walmart has dozens of deduction codes, the requirements to dispute and when each one definitely vary a lot. But some of the most important documents most commonly used for disputing are related proofs of delivery, bills of lading. Of course, those documents being signed is very important. A copy of your invoice to Walmart the purchase order sometimes can be helpful. 

And then supplier agreements often include things about, shipping terms, allowances, other things that could impact deductions that you are receiving. So that supplier agreement can sometimes be quite helpful. Okay, now when we talk about claims with Walmart, these deductions where they are not paying you in full I'm going to go through some highlights of what's on the claim and what you'll need to dispute. 

So the claim number is generally going to be the invoice number to Walmart especially if it is a deduction on one of your invoices. The claim date is when Walmart kind of creates that claim. It's not the check date or the invoice date. It is actually the claim date, its own date. And then dispute type is something that you have to select and understand what it should be based on the store or DC that you delivered to and whatever type of location that is will change what dispute type you should submit with a dispute. So claim code I've talked about. There's a lot of different codes, things like 22, 24, 25, and many more. So that is going to tell you what the reason for the deduction is and if you are looking at a specific claim, you generally want to dispute all of the claim codes on that claim. 

So if there's different items with that claim code, you should dispute those together if it's the same code disputed amount. This is another sort of best practice on to how to dispute, we suggest disputing the full claim amount of that code so that you can have better success at getting a successful dispute and one that you win so even if you're not intending to dispute the full amount or you don't think the full amount is invalid, you're We still recommend to put that full amount on there and then Walmart can, just pay you for the part that ultimately ends up as invalid. 

Some other info, other data points, your vendor number, six digit vendor number must be on the dispute and purchase order number. Of course, the freight carrier is optional, but you can include it if you know it. The location, this is something that may be required but not always, but this would generally be, where the claim came from. 

So if it's a store or a DC that was receiving that order then that's going to be that location. The shipping method, generally prepaid or collect. If you're not sure, then collect is the best one to choose. And then lastly, when you're filling out these disputes the description is asked for, it is optional, and we don't typically see any, results based on whether you do or do not fill it out, or how you fill it out, so we'd suggest to keep this kind of short as it doesn't seem to be very relevant in the outcome of the dispute. 

Okay, so in terms of those additional data points to include on a dispute, shipping documents is definitely, especially for shortages, going to be the most important documents to attach. And you're proving that the items were actually shipped. That's the goal of having these documents included. So depending on how you ship, You may need a different document type. 

If you are collect and Walmart is picking the product up from your facility, then a signed bill of lading with a packing list, or at least with the item information on that bill of lading. is really crucial to disputing a shortage deduction if you're collect. Prepaid on the other hand, you really want that proof of delivery or drop trailer stamp if you can't get it, but a signed proof of delivery is definitely best practice here to dispute a shortage on a prepaid order. 

So really important documents to have on these shortage disputes in particular. Just to go over some data points on the shipping documents. So ideally, you have the ship to address so you can prove, where this order was going to. The PO number, of course, is required by Walmart to include on the B. 

O. L. Again, you want the item info so you can, reference that in your dispute and prove that it was actually picked up. And then again, that signature, which is very important because without a signature, it's not necessarily a real document that can be used proof of delivery, some similar data points on it that are important. 

Of course, again, chip to address PO number item info. If you can. Get that sort of stant P. O. D. that shows that the order was received in full. That is absolutely best case scenario and what you'd like to have on any specially prepaid order dispute. If you cannot get the P. O. D. a Drop trailer stamp. 

It's the next best thing to have. So that'what we recommend in that scenario. Okay, so shipping documents we talked about another kind of data point that you may want to attach on these AP deduction disputes is the invoice. Of course, the invoice just helps clarify what you actually billed for each item, the quantity, the price per unit on that item, any allowances that may have been taken on the invoice or not taken will be made visible with that invoice copy that you've submitted to Walmart, but now you're attaching in the dispute. So it's not necessarily required, it helps, it seems to help improve outcomes and speed up that research process on the Walmart side. Purchase order is another data point that you might consider attaching in your sort of document list on that dispute. 

This is not usually necessary, but in some cases it can help especially understanding which items were ordered by Walmart, at what price what units, that kind of information would typically be on the PO and sometimes can be helpful, but usually it's not near as critical. As those other two docs we just talked about. 

And then lastly, the supplier agreement talked about this as another document to attach. If you have allowances or return deductions, then this is when this is most applicable. So you can reference that agreement to, fight back on any invalid deduction that was taken that is outside of what you've agreed in that supplier agreement. 

That's really helpful for those types of scenarios. Some other things that could be helpful, claim document itself. So just attaching a copy of kind of the full claim document where these deductions are shown is helpful. You can also attach things like packing slips and even reports from retail link. 

So if you're fighting something like a shortage, You could attach, for example, receiving reports from DSS, another Retail Link app, that shows, these goods were actually received. So that's a scenario that could be helpful if there's returns info in Retail Link. You may want to attach it to a returns related deduction. 

And then lastly, buyer approval. If you have any deductions where the buyer may be of help in validating or confirming that deduction is invalid and you have that in an email, then that is, great proof to attach to your dispute to increase your chances at winning. So these are all things to consider attaching in your disputes and hopefully help you win more than you lose. 

And we did just want to make a note and we'll reference it on the OTIF side too, but talking to your buyer, getting their sort of help in fighting these charges some things to consider, of course, every buyer is different. Some of them are very busy. Some of them are not as busy, maybe and more likely to help. 

Some are less likely to help. So your mileage will likely vary when working with your buyers and trying to get their help with charges or deductions. So just, keep in mind how your relationship exists with your buyer. If they're not very working very close with you and seem to you seem to struggle to get responses and maybe you don't want to hit them up all the time and you want to save those reach outs for more significant charges or deductions that you want their help on. 

So just keep that in mind as you try to get help with your buyer. Try to get the most bang for your buck out of those conversations when you reach out to that person at Walmart. Okay, and on that note, disputing OTIF fines with your buyer. Let's talk about that. So OTIF actually had a little bit of a change in their dispute process this year. 

So early on this year, Walmart slid in a small update to their OTIF FAQ and published this this sort of one line change of, are OTIF charges disputable? This question did not exist in their FAQ before this year. But they added it in, and they said, yes, you can dispute in high radius, and there was just a very little additional detail, but not much. 

The process is still a little bit unclear. We've learned a lot this year with working with suppliers and disputing OTIF charges. Looking forward to sharing some of those insights with you, but this was a change in that OTIF fine disputing world. It used to not have an official process, and we'll talk about, first we're going to talk about what kind of the old process was that you may still be able to use today, and then we'll cover the new dispute process with High Radius. 

In terms of that old process, really, if you wanted to get OTIF fines reversed or disputed your best bet was to work with your buyer to try to especially try to waive the fines before they were issued rather than disputing after the fact. There seemed to be the best chance at wiping these charges away if you could get them waived before they were issued. 

So we generally recommended talking with your buyer one to two weeks before the fine came out and requesting their help in getting these fines waived and sending them documentation and reasoning why. And if you were able to get those fines waived, then you avoid the fine and you don't have to dispute after the fact. 

That is always a nice option if you can have success with that. I mentioned that all buyers are not made the same. We've seen some departments and buyers where suppliers have had, pretty good success at working with their buyers to get invalid fines, especially waived. Sometimes if there were really extenuating circumstances like there has been in the world, the last two to three years at this point. There were some fine wavings that happen through this method of working with your buyer, but then other departments and buyers were a lot less receptive to this. So your mileage will vary here. And in terms of whether you should dispute with your buyer or through this new high radius dispute process, we get this question a lot. 

What I would say is that if you have success at getting fines waived with your buyer, then by all means continue to use it until, that well runs dry. So if it's working, great. Keep doing it until, proven otherwise. Sometimes we've seen some suppliers reach out to their buyer this year and get a response saying, this should be submitted in high radius. 

And if they come back and say that, then great. No harm, no foul. We can try the high radius dispute process. If you've never tried to dispute with your buyer, you could try it. If you have a good relationship with your buyer, if they're responsive, that's probably, some good signs that there might be some luck with this method, if they're not receptive or they haven't really got any fines reversed, then you might just want to skip to the high radius process. 

But I did want to talk about this as one option to try to get fines reversed before they are issued. As we have seen some success at using this kind of method. So if you are going to go about disputing with your buyer, generally, you're going to send an email kind of with your OTIF fine waiving request. 

Again, like one to two weeks before that fine is issued. So obviously you want to include some data like the PO numbers that you're disputing what kinds of charges they have, and reasoning on why you're asking the fines to be waived. And it could be that Walmart their data is wrong. It could be that their processes, impacted your performance, and you're going to explain why these fines occurred and they should be waived. 

So that's, there's, your reasoning can be as imaginative as you are. If you can put together a case that you think your buyer will be receptive to, then you know, it may be worth trying. And then lastly, obviously you want to be clear about how much you're asking to be waived in that dispute request with your buyer. 

So hopefully it gives you a little bit of an idea as to one way to go about to get these fines reversed. Up until this year, this was really the only method that you had to try to get OTIF fines reversed and waived was with this process. Now we will talk about the new process. So this is all happening, this new dispute process in an app called High Radius. 

It is outside of Retail Link but every Walmart supplier should have access to it. And we want to actually call out here where the data is located. So if you want to dispute, you have to do that in the High Radius app in Walmart's sort of high radius portal. So that's where you go to dispute. 

If you want to see your detailed performance data, your scores, which POs were non compliant for what reasons then that is going to still be inside of retail link in the OTIF scorecard app where you can get more details about OTIF performance. And specifically, this is what it looks like to open that OTIF scorecard app in Retail Link. 

So once you log into it, you can go to your apps and it's, that's the name of the key OTIF app on time in full OTIF scorecard. So the data inside of that scorecard app there's several things you can do based on that sort of visibility. Obviously you want to understand that the compliance issues that you contributed to. 

It's a little bit confusing if you're new to OTIF because Walmart can have accountability for non compliance. Those Walmart accountable issues do not count towards your fines or your score but the supplier accountable issues do. You want to focus in on those supplier accountable compliance issues. 

Of course, a major action item to do with OTIF performance is trying to figure out the why, why did these POs fail at compliance, so that once you understand why, you can attempt to make changes to, prevent those issues from happening in the future. You may even find that Walmart was to blame or their data is inaccurate. 

And then you may want to dispute. So sometimes root cause is not going to lead to a prevention. It's going to lead to a dispute. Other things you can do with this data is obviously you can filter and export and try to present to your 3PLs or carriers or warehouses that you work with and show them. 

their detailed performance so that you can, try to spread the accountability to the partners in your supply chain that control these specific processes. And that's a big part of OTIF Root Causing is making issues visible to understand what to work on. And then disputing OTIF finds there is data in the OTIF scorecard app that you need to export in order to submit to High Radius when you dispute. 

So you have to use both apps. You've got to get data out of OTIF scorecard and then plug that into your High Radius dispute. So also useful for that. And on that note, High Radius we shared a little bit of visibility into what High Radius looks like since this is sometimes newer to folks who are digging into OTIF. 

So this is really meant to be an accounts receivable portal for Walmart suppliers. So this is where it's accounts receivable from Walmart's perspective. So they are publishing all of their invoices to you. in this portal. So these are more like chargebacks. These are all of the OTIF fines, all of the SQEP fines the new collect pickup program invoices that sort of freight charge, those are also posted in high radius. 

So all of those invoices from Walmart will be in high radius. And you can actually dispute in High Radius. And so once you see those invoices, when you spot an OTIF fine or a SQEP fine, it's going to be one invoice per month per six digit vendor number. So you would select that row, and there is actually a dispute button in High Radius to dispute. 

You would dispute that entire month. within that one dispute. So any POs for SQEP or OTIF that you want to dispute, you would do it in one shot for that month. And the dispute window that you have especially for OTIF, is 13 months. And I believe it is the same for SQEP as well. And that is typically Based on how much data is loaded in that OTIF scorecard app where you're gathering the data to submit in this high radius dispute. 

So 13 months of invoices is what your window is to dispute. And just at a high level, in terms of, how to submit these disputes. So let's say you've tried to dispute with your buyer. They were a no go, they didn't respond, or they didn't choose to help you reverse that fine. So now you've actually been fined. 

At this point, you still have the ability to dispute in high radius once that fine actually gets issued. That's the second step of this process. If you want to do the most complete sort of, comprehensive dispute attempt and try to get every chance you possibly can, you can dispute with the buyer first and then dispute in high radius, but you do not have to dispute with the buyer. 

You could just skip to trying to dispute in high radius also. Okay, so if you're going to dispute in high radius, what should you include on your dispute? So this is where their details were really bare to start. They listed some kind of generic information to include things like screenshots, documentation, research and communication with Walmart partners. So not real specific on what they are looking for when you submit that dispute. We'll talk about some other sort of data points that we know you need to include. And then This is something that is a little bit brand new that we've seen in the last couple of weeks. 

So we've been reviewing high radius disputes, both accepted and denied disputes. And what we've seen lately. With some of these denials is they list out like here's the data points that you need to include on your OTIF dispute just to even get them to review it and their various columns. But one additional data point that they've called out in the last few weeks is this OTIF buyer payback template. It, one thing that is not clear is whether this is actually required now going forward on all high radius OTIF disputes, or if this is an optional template that if you have buyer approval to reverse a charge, then they want you to include that approval in this format. And So that's what we're trying to figure out right now is, which is required and the fun thing about watching these disputes over this entire year since this process has gone live is high radius, I think, has been adapting their own processes at what is required. 

We've seen their list of requirements change probably four or five times at least over these last six, seven months on what is required in an OTIF dispute. So that's why we're always monitoring this and trying to share the latest that we know in these webinars and documentation. But this is hot off the presses right now of this sort of template that they are requesting to be filled out and in your buyer approval process. If we talked about earlier disputing with your buyer, if you, if the fine has already been issued and you still want to dispute in high radius, You can still go to your buyer and say high radius is requesting your approval to wait to reverse these OTIF charges that are invalid. 

Here's why they're invalid. Here's the list of POs who wanted to reverse and. Here's the template to fill out so that I can supply this to the high radius. That's essentially what it seems like they're asking you as suppliers to do with the buyer. And I'm not sure why they've created more documentation and process around this, but hopefully this will just be an optional thing. 

And they'll still review OTIF disputes without it. But this is something new they've been mentioning. So if you see this, there's some links to the actual template, but on screen you can see what it looks like. Okay, so hopefully that sort of gives you some idea to disputing in High Radius. 

The last thing we have on this is the bare minimum of what you need to supply in a High Radius OTIF dispute for them to even review it. So these are all columns of data that you can mostly find in the OTIF scorecard app and retail link. So when you go to that scorecard app, you can view your PO level data for a particular month. 

And there are many columns that you can pick from. These are the columns that they have requested you to include on your OTIF dispute. So six digit vendor number. the host PO number the item numbers. So this, if you're disputing in full charges, you need to have this kind of at the line level where you have the item info included. 

And then charge type and charge amount are columns that actually don't exist in OTF scorecard or exist with a little bit to fit their sort of column description. But you can, those are pretty straightforward in terms of what they mean. Charge type would be the metric that you're disputing, for example, in full or prepaid on time, collect ready, etc. 

And then one more slide with these sort of required data points to include on your dispute. MABD is another column that you can include on that OTIF data. If you're disputing collect ready charges, then they want the late routing cases column and the supplier ship point case columns, the delivery window, if you are disputing prepaid on time charges, and then any PO change or cancel reason code columns. 

It's not very fun to build a, Sort of this format of file, but this is specifically what High Radius asked to be included on any OTIF dispute. So unfortunately, even though it's time consuming and tedious you need to have these data points. Otherwise, they will reject it. And say you're missing information and they won't even really review, whether this was an invalid or valid charge, they'll just stop their review and reject it and kick it back to you. 

And you may have to wait weeks for them to even kick it back, so can be tedious and time consuming if you don't give them what they want, from the beginning. 

Okay wanted to cover a little bit more of identifying these invoices and the dispute process in High Radius. When you open High Radius, the first two tabs on the left are open and closed bills. If it's an open bill, it basically means these are typically more recent charges that have not yet been applied to a payment. 

So they haven't really applied that charge to any of outgoing payments. The closed bills are ones that have been applied. The good thing is that, you can dispute either invoices from either tab. So you just really have to find out which one it's in. Older OTIF months are going to be in that closed bills. 

And the most recent OTIF invoice may still be in open. But otherwise, you can dispute the same way through both tabs. And what it looks like to dispute is when you identify that chargeback, whether it's a SQEP fine or an OTIF fine you would check that row in that bills tab. And then you see that kind of list of light blue buttons right above the list. 

Over on the far right is a dispute button. So you check the invoice you want to dispute. You click on that dispute button. You can select more than one at a time, but I would just recommend doing one at a time for simplicity, but High Radius does seem to allow you to select multiple but usually the data you're supplying is different per invoice, so it may not make as much sense to do multiple at a time, but it is technically possible, it appears. 

So once you click on the dispute button, you'll get this modal to fill out information and a few sort of data points to fill out. So number one dispute reason, just a little bit of a pro tip. If you're disputing an OTIF charge, they always want you to select incorrect billing. There's a few options that you have in this drop down. 

None of them are very relevant to OTIF. So it's not really, the reason for your dispute or anything like that. It's just a step you have to do. So if you're disputing OTIF and Iridius, I strongly recommend you to select incorrect billing for that dispute reason. That seems to be what they want you to fill out. 

And then amount to be disputed, of course, is the dollar amount you're disputing. Thank you. Comments, if you want to attach any reasoning for why you're filling out the dispute or, why the charges are invalid, you can attach those in the comments. I wouldn't recommend going too crazy in those comments as we don't think it influences the outcome too much, but at least some context as to, why the dispute is there could be helpful. 

And then lastly, attachments for relevant documents. Attachments is where, you definitely want to attach that. Excel file from that you've downloaded from the OTF scorecard app. So all those columns we talked about, including, MABD PO numbers, item numbers, vendor numbers, et cetera, all of that in that Excel file. 

That's what you add a minimum have to attach to this dispute for just to get them to review it. And then of course you can attach additional kind of relevant documents to back up your dispute if you have that. And then lastly, once you've filled it out, they've got a save button in the bottom right corner. 

And make sure you click on save to actually submit that dispute. And then that will create the dispute and then you can track it from there. And where you would track those disputes is in the disputes tab in High Radius. So you would click on that and you'll see a list of disputes where you can look up the progress, their statuses. 

There's also a column, you can see it on this screenshot, it's the next to last column on the right side called deduction notes. So if you get a rejected or approved Dispute in high radius. Typically, they will add some feedback in that deduction notes column. It's usually just a link and you click on it and it shows you the related comments. 

And that can be helpful to understand. why they rejected it, or if it's approved, you can actually sometimes see how much they approved it for and when it would be paid back. The deduction notes and the status are usually the most important columns in that disputes tab along with, just the invoice number so you can track which, which dispute that invoice is related to. 

Okay, so some scenarios of why you would dispute. I mentioned earlier, if you're disputing with your buyer it's really up to you as to what you think is worthy of disputing. There's no official definition of, what an invalid fine is. If you know you've been impacted by something that Walmart has done, If you think Walmart's data is incorrect if you've been impacted by, crazy circumstances outside of your control weather obviously is one that happens a lot and can impact you, among other things, then those are all reasons on why you might dispute so some scenarios that we've laid out here that we've seen some success with as well as sort of consistent challenges across suppliers. 

So first one, if you're prepaid, we hear a lot about, DCs don't have appointment availability to schedule your appointment in the MABD window. And it's a struggle to, to schedule and Walmart doesn't have any appointments available. So that's a scenario where if you can show, we tried to schedule in the window, but there were none available. 

That's a scenario you could dispute. If you're collect, on the other hand, usually the problem is that Walmart fails to pick up or they send you a truck with, half the trailer filled up and you need the full trailer. Those kinds of scenarios can cause late routings if you have to route again, if they miss a pickup and you can get fined because of sort of Walmart's truck's performance. 

So no matter if you're pre paid or collect, there are always failure points where, you're a little bit out of luck. So those are scenarios you can dispute. We also see, especially on the in full side, discrepancies in Walmart systems. So sometimes DSS will show a PO was received in full. 

But OTIF does not. OTIF says there's a shortage and you've now been fined for it. So that's a good discrepancy to highlight and dispute. You may also want to dispute discrepancies between your ASN data, what you shipped to Walmart, and Walmart's received data as well. So that's another scenario you could potentially dispute. 

And then again, inclement weather, crazy, world circumstances that are outside of your control are maybe other reasons to dispute. I would say you may have more success with that type of dispute with your buyer than High Radius. From what we've seen High Radius is more accounting like they're not necessarily sympathetic listener to supply chain challenges, they're more data driven. 

If there's a clear data reason to reverse a fine, then we see some success with high radius. But if you have sort of crazy circumstances, and your buyer is probably going to be more sympathetic to that than the dispute review personnel. With high radius. And just had a note on here to communicate issues with Walmart team as they come up. 

That's, I think, particularly useful when and if you are disputing with your buyer. If you tell them there, some real supply chain challenges going on or weather events that have impacted you. then when you go to try to get that fine waived or, disputed after the fact, you can reference what you talked about earlier and it's not a total surprise, and the buyer is aware of it and maybe they're going to be more receptive to helping you reverse that charge at that point. 

So pretty much exactly what I just said on this slide, that documentation, and communicating along the way. These all create paper trails of, what happened, what you did along the way. And again, especially disputing with your buyer, that can be really helpful. But sometimes with high radius as well. 

Same scenarios here, already covered this. We'll skip right past that one. And I did want to provide an example of kind of a real high radius dispute that was partially approved in this case. This is something, this exact scenario we've seen multiple approvals with. We've also seen rejections for it, but we have seen some success at disputing this scenario. 

So in this case it was a not in full fine that was issued and out of that overall not in fun. not in full fine. We compared the OTIF received cases to what was received according to DSS. And there was a discrepancy. And that discrepancy where DSS shows the cases that were received compared to OTIF, just those cases resulted in like a 3, 500 OTF fine for that month and sometimes Obviously depending on the size of business that you have with walmart. 

This is going to vary a lot But in this case, it was like 3, 400 They submitted to high radius appeared to review You know the list of po's that was different and they approved about a third of them and It's not exactly always logical as to why they approve some and not others. But, I think from our perspective, if Walmart's own data is showing these cases are received. 

But they're not in OTIF. This is probably a more winnable scenario than some other scenarios that you could dispute. So wanted to highlight this because we've seen a little bit more success at disputing this particular scenario. So something to consider if you're receiving a lot of kind of invalid, not in full fines. 

If you can use Walmart's data. As your own proof, then that's a great spot to be in. And, I think a buyer, if you were going to dispute with your buyer in advance and try that route, they're also potentially going to be more receptive to helping you out when you can make that logical argument and say, look, these cases were received in DSS. 

But we got all these fines in OTIF for them. So hopefully just one sort of insight to help you dispute and fight some of these invalid charges. And Melodie, I think that does it for our last session, except for our Q and A.  

[00:45:55] Melodie Hays: All right. And I have some news for you. We don't have any questions. I haven't seen any come through chat. 

So we just breeze through that. Are you guys all brain dead? I just exhausted. And we're like, all right, we're ready to end decoded. I'm going to give you guys like 30 more seconds. If I don't see anything come through the chat, then we will end. Our decoded conference. Thank you so much, everyone for joining us for this full day. 

This is the first time we've ever done it. So we will be sending a feedback survey out after this. Please let us know. Let us know what you thought. Let us know, you know what we can do better for next time. I love your feedback. So thank you so much, everyone who joined with us today. Thank you, Ryan, for being on so many different sessions really appreciate it. 

Thank you guys. Have a great rest of your Thursday. Hopefully, we'll see you guys again soon."