12.5 Disputing 2022 Walmart Overages Before They're Gone 

[00:00:00] Allie: Thank you all for joining today. Really excited about today's topic. We're talking about 2022 Walmart overages and why you should be disputing them now if you haven't done so this year. So leading us in today's content is the wonderful Hudson Bercier. He is our Associate Product Manager on our Walmart team, so he is the perfect person to be walking us through today's content. 
 

And then your host. If you've been on webinars before, you may remember my face. My name is Allie Truong, and I'm the SupplierWiki Research Manager. So happy to have you all here. before we get started, I want to unpack our agenda a little bit. What are we talking about today? We have a lot to cover. so first off, What are the 2022 overages deadline? 
 

We're going to cover that. Spoiler alert, it's coming up. We're going to talk about how overages affect your business. The overall impact from one overage to the large collection that you may have if you're unaware. We're also going to talk about how to identify disputable overages claims. You can do that manually. 
 

We'll also reference some of the ways you can do that with SupplyPike. And then of course, this is something that we always want to cover, whether we're talking about overages, shortages, any type of revenue loss, how do you prevent them in the future and how do you dispute them in 2025 as you're collecting new overages in the new year. 
 

Then we will have a Q& A with Hudson and myself, and if you stick around, we'll go through the product just a little bit at the end to get a taste of what you can do when you're disputing overages with SupplyPike. A couple of FAQs that I want to cover before we get into content. A question we get almost every webinar is, am I going to get a copy of today's slide deck? 
 

Yes. We're going to send you a copy of the slide deck, both a recording and a PDF format of the slide deck. And that should be in your inbox in about three to four business days. And then what is the best way to ask a question? So if you still want to tell me your favorite Christmas song, please do Do it in the chat. 
 

I love to read those and interact with you all as you're joining webinars. Otherwise, the Q& A, and that's the two speech bubbles, that's the best way for me to see your questions and then tee them up for Hudson. I may answer, ask some questions throughout today's presentation, but typically we have some time allotted at the end of the webinar to talk through that, so I'll save most of those for the end. 
 

Next, I'll cover what SupplyPike is. So if this is your first webinar and you're confused about what we're talking about, So SupplierWiki is a part of SupplyPike and SupplyPike is a platform that we have that helps dispute and review, Hudson, if you don't mind going back just to the slide before. No worries. 
 

Thank you. dispute and recover revenue loss. Today we're going to be talking about overages at Walmart. But we serve a lot of different retailers, suppliers in different retailers and cover different revenue loss buckets. So we do have a product for Target, we have a product for Amazon, we have a solution for, Walgreens, we have a solution for CVS, Home Depot, Lowe's, so really exciting stuff. 
 

and we also cover different revenue buckets like deductions, OTIF, so Hudson can answer any questions of that if you have that during the Q& A. All right, last thing that I'll cover is I'm gonna be in the background here, probably sending some of these resources. If you have only joined our SupplierWiki webinars, you are missing out on some of our ebooks, our articles, and some of the other wonderful content that we have. 
 

So go and explore SupplierWiki. I'll send the link in the chat and be sending resources throughout today's presentation. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to Hudson to get into today's presentation.  
 

[00:03:55] Hudson: Thanks, Allie, and thank you all for joining. Happy to be here and let's talk some overages. So first, like we mentioned in the agenda, the first topic we're going to cover is, what is the 2022 overages deadline? 
 

so for 2022 overages, they expire the end of this year. historically we've seen, Walmart suppliers successfully, invoice for overages within about two calendar years of the overage. And that overage is going to generally be around the order date or the MABD date. Those are the kind of, dates we're going to be looking at. 
 

in the past year we've witnessed, Some exceptions to this, but the chances of success for, disputing or invoicing for those start to dwindle a lot more. so there could be a case where after three years you might be able to, successfully invoice for an overage, but those are going to be a lot less likely to, get back. 
 

And so we highly encourage staying caught up on these overages, and those opportunities that do come through. And in that way, you make sure to capture, the, the recovery of, your revenue, as you should. so best practices is to submit overages within the two year mark. which means, of course, now is the time to act on those 2022 overages. 
 

so we wanted to make sure you guys were aware of that. yeah, so now is the time to act, reviewing and addressing the outstanding invoices within two years of their receipt, and then hopefully recovering valuable revenue, which will help improve cash flow and minimize the financial impact of unclaimed funds on your bottom line.

So making sure you capture all those opportunities before it becomes too late and they're unrecoverable, obviously with a few exceptions, of course. we want to make sure everyone has the opportunity to see and capture those opportunities in a timely manner. And then that way you guys can, recognize and write them off. 
 

All right. And after that, we wanted to go into how does this affect your business? we'll start a little bit on, a base level of the foundation, what are averages? plain and simple the amount of products sent to a retailer in excess of what was ordered. Walmart's specific definition is an amount of inventory That exceeds the inventory expected. 
 

You'll see a great little graphic right here. The invoice having three cartons of this juice and looks like Walmart received six of them. So that's more than they were expecting, more than you invoiced. And so that's going to be considered an overage. We'll talk a little bit more about some of how this might happen, but as a, baseline foundation, it's generally just Walmart receiving more than what they were expecting either on an order or from a particular invoice. 
 

So some of this can be a ripple effect from shortages. issue compounding, if there is an error on Walmart's receiving process, and one DC's short order results in an overage in another DC's order. So another great graphic here. we've got a shortage in DC2035, where they received about five short of what they were expecting for cases delivered. 
 

And then DC530, er, 5340 ended up receiving five over. So it could be that there was something happening before then. It could be that, your, load had multiple POs on it. One ended up on at the correctant DC as expected. The other one ended up being at a different DC. That's one of the reasons why that could possibly happen, especially for orders that go through maybe a consolidation center. 
 

Things happen where humans, human error happens. And so sometimes not everything, gets to the, end destination as it should. And so cases like this do occur. 
 

so what are some of the impacts? Of shortages and overages. So in the context of deductions, quap, otif, we've, of course got your shortage deduction that can take place. Like this particular graphic is showcasing one DC saw shortage. and so when you're invoicing for those 15 cases that you were expecting to show up correctly at that DC Walmart will say, Hey, we only got about 10 of those. 
 

So it's about a 5K shortage. But on the other side of the coin. Looks like there was an overage that was detected, but it was for a different location that received that extra product. so that's one effect. there's a POD effect more related to SQEP. So SQEP, we'll talk a little bit more about that. 
 

Walmart essentially de incentivizing, suppliers from sending more than they should. Sometimes that's not always how it shakes out. It's sometimes just a mistake or an error when some product gets to a DC and others don't. there's an overage fine that's associated with that. In addition to an OTIF fine, that's going to be related to that in full metric. 
 

and if, you're seeing, cases where you're short of on what was ordered. for a particular DCE or just in general, you'll see an OTIF find associated with that. So there are three different ways in which Walmart can hit you for these types of situations, whether it's the supplier's fault, Walmart's fault, could be any of them. 
 

and what's not named here, of course, is, the unrecognized revenue that you've, that you see is, as they're shorting it, Walmart has then still received product in which You've billed for, but have not yet been paid on. And so that's another scenario in which you're losing out. 
 

And that's another impact of these shortages and overages. so why does this matter? So of course I mentioned, the deductions, the SQEP fines and the OTIF fines that do occur, that results in, triple dipping into your pocket and you want to make sure to capture these opportunities and, as we'll be talking about a little bit later, SupplyPike can help with that. 
 

see each, side of this, this situation in which you see the deduction, the SQEP fine, and even the OTIV fine, the ability to view those, and actually dispute them as well. so Walmart won't pay for any additional number of cases and may even assign multiple fines to the supplier for overages. 
 

There are sometimes cases where Walmart will Particularly on one PO where one item is received short, one item is received over, they'll reconcile within that. Sometimes it's not You know, consistent. We don't see a, it happened all the time, but they're, they've, we've seen some evidence of, them trying to reconcile a little bit of those cases happening on one particular PO versus across two different POs. 
 

so they'll start to account for that as well, but we want to make sure that you guys are aware of the effects that shortages and overages have and make sure that you can capture those opportunities and make sure you're paid for what you're out. 
 

Yeah, and I just to continue, collateral damage of overages, you'll see the type program, the code, and the bucket that it falls in. You, of course, have the shortage deductions like we were mentioning. Specifically, those are going to be involved with code 22s, code 24s, The ones, that are going to most likely appear with this. 
 

the only different one here is, code 25. That's going to be the full invoice deduction In which Walmart is basically saying, hey, we didn't receive any of the product that you know, according to our data according to what's going on here? We didn't receive any of what you're invoicing us for So it's a full invoice deduction the code 22s and 24s are going to be related to partial shortages They're going to simply say hey, we received some of this product based on what we're seeing, but we didn't receive everything and so we're going to deduct for just a small portion of that. 
 

So that's going to be under the bucket of, shipping slash shortage code. in addition, you might see code 95. So those are not as common. that's going to be, wrong item, related to overages. it's going to be under the bucket of a merchandise code. those, Like I said, don't happen way too often, but they sometimes do appear when overage situations do occur. 
 

On OTIF, like we were mentioning in full, that's going to be the particular metric in which you'll receive a fine on. For SQEP, of course, you've got the overage fines. Like I said before, Walmart de incentivizing the supplier to overship. And however, that may not happen very often where there's purposeful or just simply overshipping based on an order. 
 

But that's a fine that Walmart will assign based on the SQEP program. That's under phase one of the SQEP program as they were rolling it out. We're about on phase three right now and waiting on phase four for context. So that's a little bit deeper into the collateral damage of overages and how it can affect you and what programs are involved. 
 

Cool. wanted to move on to, so how do we even identify disputable overage opportunities? What are the opportunities that are present? so there are two different ways of understanding this. We've mentioned SQEP finds. what are billable overages? That's a term we use here. if overages are just sending too many units to Walmart, A billable overage describes a situation where the revenue has been lost because Walmart isn't going to pay for the extra items that they receive. 
 

It is a billable because suppliers have seen success billing Walmart for these extra items. We've worked with a lot of suppliers that have seen success in this process, where we've been able to identify, Situations in which, for a particular PO, Walmart has received more in the value of goods than what you've already been paid for. 
 

And in turn, there is still more that you can invoice for and capture that unrecognized revenue from there. That's going to be a little bit different than overage fines. Overage fines, like I mentioned, are Walmart's way of de incentivizing, sending too much product to the DC, and then billing for it later. 
 

And the SQEP program, These fines are sent as failure to comply to PO accuracy. That's the specific defect category it falls under. and so yeah, that's the difference between billable overages and overage fines. There are different sources of how these might occur. but yeah, essentially you want to look at, what did Walmart receive? 
 

And what did we bill for? What did Walmart order to begin with? so those are the two ways of understanding overages. and like I mentioned and alluded to, what are some of the root causes of overages? true overages, the root cause of true overages are due to the amount of product sent to a retailer in excess of what was ordered. 
 

So comparing the PO and the ordered quantities to the received amounts that Walmart has in their system. then there's Shortage Triggered Overages. those are probably going to be the most common situations that we've seen historically with the suppliers you've worked with. these can happen by PO number if only one PO per truck and, situations where there are multiple POs on the truck. 
 

there have been situations in which, like I mentioned before, you ship two different POs on one particular load. and when they're receiving them at their respective DCs or they go through a consolidation center, things get mixed up a little bit. Sometimes it happens, where one particular receiving DC sees a shortage and another particular receiving DC, receives more than they were expecting. 
 

that can happen on the same PO as well. Like I mentioned, where one item is short, one item is over. and so those are situations that could occur when it comes to overages, whether it's true or if it's a shortage triggered. some other reasons why overages may occur, we've mentioned shortages, POs being sent to the wrong DC, can also occur with inaccurate demand planning, issues in NOVA with, item setup or anything. 
 

That kind of goes into Item 360, now transitioning to Supplier 1 for a lot of this, issues with labeling and packaging. sometimes that can cause certain items to be scanned incorrectly, certain items to be looked at and moved around improperly based on the labels. so proper labeling and packaging is key to making sure that those that are receiving at their DC can have a true understanding of, okay, this product is related to this particular PO. 
 

It needs to be received this way. So it's really important to have properly labeled and packaged goods when you're sending them to Walmart. And then that way there's minimal human error, that occurs whenever they're receiving. But, things happen. And that's why we're covering our bases by identifying all these opportunities and scenarios in which it could happen. 
 

And then that way you're still paid for what you're owed on the product you send to Walmart. A quick question for the chat. Are there other root causes of overages that your team has experienced that we haven't already talked about today? Please let us know and happy to discuss them and call them out. 
 

I think that'd be great to share those. 
 

So identifying billable overages, we talked a little bit about the root cause. So what does it look like to understand the ins and outs of identifying billable overages? To detect them, you should thoroughly examine invoices, payments, and receiving data. These are going to be the key data points in identifying overages. 
 

You're going to look for the product you shipped. You're going to see, hey, what do we actually invoice Walmart for, in, relationship to this particular PO and the products we sent. after that, you're going to look at, what did they receive? What did Walmart's data show us that they received? 
 

whether it's in the count or the value of goods. and then at the end of the day, what did Walmart pay us? if they received everything as they should have, they received more. What did they pay us? And in that way we can accurately. compare what do we invoice for, what do we pay, or what do we get paid, and then what do they receive at the end of the day. 
 

And then that way we can truly know, okay, is there an outstanding balance here in which Walmart hasn't actually paid us entirely for what they received, whether it was on purpose, by mistake, if an overage or shortage happened, and then you make sure that you cheer up there. So these are the important data points you want to consider as you're identifying billable overages. 
 

So timing matters here, of course. Making sure to investigate overages that have occurred in the past two years to capture any missed billing opportunities and ensure your claims align with Walmart's invoice timeline. You cannot assume that, You can't assume something when a billable overage is happening too quickly. 
 

Don't assume that a billable overage is actually a billable overage too quickly. Allowing for sufficient time to actually confirm all the goods have been received, the initial payment is on the invoice that has been finalized. This precaution will help avoid any unnecessary disputes and ensure accuracy in your overage claims. 
 

We'll talk a little bit more, later about, how this is in SupplyPike and what measures we're taking to help with this. But you want to make sure that you're not too quick on, shooting Walmart over an invoice for a potential situation. You have to make sure that, like I mentioned in the previous slide, you account for all these different data points. 
 

When we ship the product to Walmart, did we invoice for it? Have they paid us for that? And what does the receiving data say? And then that way you can see, okay, we've given Walmart ample time to pay for this invoice, to receive the goods that, that are at the DCs. Because sometimes, there's a little bit of a delay in receiving depending on how you ship, and depending on the DC that you're working with. 
 

And so you want to make sure that all those are clear. And you want to put a little gap in place to make sure that all that is finalized before you make a judgment on, is this a particular situation, this PO that has a billable overage. and so you want to make sure that, your timing is correct here and you make sure that all the data is up to date before you make a judgment on whether or not, this particular PO has a billable overage. 
 

Awesome. From here, we want to move on to common deductions and fines. We've mentioned these already, previously, but want to dive a little bit deeper. like I mentioned for those deductions, Code 22s, 24s, and 25s, Code 22s, like I mentioned earlier, they arise when the quantity of an invoice or of an on the invoice does not exactly match the quantity the facility says it received. 
 

this is, purely based on, what you billed for, and then what Walmart is seeing in their receiving data. This is going to be stemmed, used to be from DSS, and now it's going to be SupplierOne. So they're going to refer to that data, to see what did we receive and what did the supplier bill us for. 
 

And then that way they can take a look and compare from there. And then the issue, the deduction, after that, of course, when you're disputing, you want to make sure to include any proof documentation that might say otherwise, let's say, Hey, We actually did, send all the product according to this, this particular documentation. 
 

go ahead and pay us back on that. Code 24s are similar. However, they occur when the shipper invoices for more than what the facility claims to have received and slash or what is on the purchase order. And these are going to be related to, I believe, carton shortages. so a little bit different, but more so the same in terms of what Walmart is looking at here. 
 

Code 25s are going to be just a little bit different. These are triggered when Walmart claims to not have received any merchandise for the invoice transmitted. So let's say you shipped, 10 of your product. You go ahead and invoice for those. But, if you invoice for it maybe too early, Walmart may say, hey, according to our data, we haven't received any of this. 
 

And we're going to issue a code 25, which is going to basically be a full invoice deduction. And, you would use similar, documentation to actually dispute those. So these can be related to overages, as they might be related to the, the shortage. OTIF. so we, like we mentioned before, the particular metric it's going to be related to is in full. 
 

Walmart expects about a 95 percent fill rate. That's a little bit different than what used to be the lofty goals of 98%. these are going to be any non compliant cases that are liable for OTIF fines. if you do fall under that threshold of 95%, it is going to cost about 3 percent of cost of goods sold. 
 

so it's it, it can hurt a little bit if you're not careful. so keeping an eye on your fill rate as you're progressing through the quarter. Walmart bills these quarterly now instead of monthly like they used to prior to 2024. And so you're going to want to keep an eye on those as the quarter progresses and make sure that you're above the 95 percent goal that they've set out. 
 

OTIF finds, excuse me, are disputable through high radius. and so that's the place where you're going to, gather your data. I actually, you'll gather your data and retail link in the OTIF scorecard and, provide that data within high radius. and then that way you can accurately. Provide Walmart the information that kind of shows, hey, you've issued us a fine for, in full, but here's some data to prove, this is, why we shouldn't be getting some of, or all of the fine that was issued. 
 

And they'll be able to look on their side to see, and double check that everything is correct there and they can issue payment after that. Some best practices, forecasting sales to anticipate Walmart And then, of course, over communicate. We want to make sure that everyone's on the same page, make sure that everyone is, where they need to be, and, making sure that we're meeting this 95 percent fill rate quick. 
 

Alrighty, on the other side, we've got another compliance related issue, which is SQEP finds. these are going to be related to overages of course. we've got the different phases, listed here. Phase 1, PO Accuracy and Advanced Ship Notice. Phase 2, Barcode and Labeling. Phase 3 being Load Quality, Label Quality. 
 

And, packaging phase four, scheduling and transportation. The one that's going to be the most relevant today is going to be the PO accuracy phase one. That's going to contain the overage fines. And we've been talking about, basically, like I said, Walmart de incentivizing, the supplier from overshipping. 
 

these in addition are also disputable through high radius. you'll want to gather the relevant data, of course, to showcase, hey, here's our dispute. Here's why we think that, these overage fines are, invalid. And then, the proceed from there. so a little bit deeper, as you'll notice, the screenshot on the right directly from Walmart documentation, it's going to have defect descriptions and defect, definitions. 
 

so that overage one at the top is where the PO line shipped exceeds the quantity ordered. So they're strictly looking at the PO and the quantities there, and then what they received and looking at those quantities, at that point. versus. what a billable overage would be looking at is, comparing, what Walmart, paid based on the invoice you sent, and comparing that to what they received, and so when they're issuing a fine, they're not looking at what was billed for what was actually paid. 
 

They were looking at strictly, hey, This is what we ordered, what we received was over that, no matter what happened in between. Then we'll issue a fine for that. Overages are specifically stated as SQEP fines. Phase 2 and 3 can also contribute to overages when the product is not marked correctly for DCs to process received inventory. 
 

So it's, like I mentioned, it's good to be careful about the labeling and packaging you have and making sure that everything is marked correctly. And that way we minimize any human error. That takes place whenever they're receiving your product. All right, let's move into preventing and disputing or really invoicing for overages. 
 

So when you're fighting overages, you'll want to, really on the side of the billable overages, not necessarily related to the, invoiced fines, from SQEP. Those would be the disputing process. billable overages, you want to invoice the retailer for the excess goods. this will need to be a new invoice. 
 

That's going to be a new invoice number. And then Walmart will recognize that this is a, new invoice for an older PO that in which you've seen, an overage for, like I mentioned, so the referencing the original purchase order number specifically, and then only including the overage amount and not any other cases on the original order because you're invoicing for. 
 

What was related to the overage, and not necessarily overbilling for other stuff in relationship. the invoice may be rejected. However, the supplier can still succeed in recovering the overage, value through Walmart's disputing process. so this is the main way to fight back on overages is to, invoice for those excess goods, when we've identified that opportunity. 
 

so the disputing over, workflow. So first you want to do some research. Like I mentioned previously, you're going to have those main data points and in which you're looking at, invoice data, receiving data, and order data. As well as payment data, you're going to research those, you're going to identify using those, data points, we're going to, find, hey, these particular POs saw billable overage opportunities, and we're going to go ahead and invoice Walmart for them, and then from there, it branches off into, Walmart either pays the whole invoice, we're said and done, we've recovered what we should have. 
 

and then the other route is they'll issue a deduction, for all or some of the invoice. that does happen and not to be afraid, we have definitely still seen success in disputing those. So organize your proof, gather your inventory, received report, and then dispute those as well. so this is the workflow in terms of going after overages. 
 

Looks like we do have a few questions. Ali, do we want to answer those now or do we want to wait to the Q& A?  
 

[00:29:58] Allie: I was going to send them to the Q& A, but since you've seen them, if you want to answer them, I can read them.  
 

[00:30:03] Hudson: Sure. Go ahead.  
 

[00:30:04] Allie: All right. Anne says in the chat, going back to OTIP disputes through HighRadius, can we dispute a rejection? 
 

[00:30:14] Hudson: So for a rejection, are you meaning Walmart, saw the product at the facility and, they straight up just did not accept, the product and they sent it back or they got rid of it? Is that kind of what we're referring to?  
 

[00:30:30] Allie: Let's assume that. I, I also read it as disputing an OTIF fine and then it's rejected. 
 

[00:30:38] Hudson: Oh, okay. if, you dispute once, Walmart rejects it, you can dispute again. we have seen success in disputing one more time. as long as you don't have two disputes open for one particular invoice, you should still be able to go after it again. yeah, just making sure, because if you do open two at the same time, Walmart will retract both of them and close it out. 
 

[00:31:05] Allie: Awesome. Thank you. And we're also going to get into some more OTIF content, so if there are more questions Anne that you have, we can get into that in the Q& A  
 

[00:31:13] Hudson: Awesome. Appreciate the question, Dan. Alright. Some tips around proof documentation. For a true overage, you'll want to pull an inventory received report to verify how much product, Walmart Systems says it received. 
 

That's going to be very important. when disputing, you'll need to provide the invoices that were related, the BOL or POD. And then an MABD report with the rows, with the overages, and the shortages highlighted. That way it's very clear cut. Hey, Walmart, this is what's going on. Here is all the relevant data you need to review this dispute. 
 

And then we can go from there. 
 

For shortage triggered overages, you're going to lose similar information. You're going to find that MABD report, which is going to help understand when POs are shipped to the DCs and may uncover a shortage triggered overage. This will tie the shortage claim to the overage that was received and then payment will be due to payback. 
 

if you can show Walmart, hey, looks like these are related, let's settle up here. Understandably, something was short, something was over. This kind of helps tie these all together. Another piece of information that's helpful is finding that load number. So if this happens across two different POs that were on the same load, gives you some context on, okay, that makes a lot of sense. 
 

These two POs were on the same load. Looks like they were just misreceived. Then create fields showing overage and shortage by taking the quantity received minus the quantity ordered. Then if the item is short, it will give a negative quantity, the example minus 10. If there is an overage, it will be a positive number. 
 

Then that way it's easier to identify and see from that data set as well. 
 

How do you rebuild for overages? So you'll want to pull a report from Luminator Nova. of that inventory received. This will show you and help you determine in step two, which orders were received over, based on Walmart's own receiving data. That's very important here. You're, using Walmart's own receiving data because that's going to be the most important data to them, as they're identifying, and repaying, these overages and shortages. 
 

to build Walmart, you're going to go through your normal invoicing process. You're not going to have to identify, Hey Walmart. This is for an overage. Just so you know, you don't have to do that. You can send them the same way you would issue a regular invoice and you would do it via EDI. You would just want to make sure that, okay, we're using a new invoice number. 
 

It's not going to be the same exact invoice number. As we used previously on this particular purchase order and you're referring to that purchase order that was related to the overage if you use the same invoice number that's going to send a flag for walmart They're going to reject and possibly even issue a full invoice and say hey, it's a duplicate invoice We can't really do anything about this. 
 

But if you issue a new invoice and a new invoice number That's going to help Walmart look at it with fresh eyes and say, okay, they're just billing for additional product that we didn't already pay them for. So we can look at this in that way. And then from there, you'll start to watch for repayments and deductions in APIS. 
 

You'll dispute the deductions that come in regarding the invoice. Those are typically going to come in at code 25s, but sometimes those do come through in codes 22 and 24. 
 

Determining orders that are signed over. So you guys are seeing this little screenshot here. We'll view the items on the order and compare the quantities invoiced for, in APIS or your internal system when the quantities are received. so you'll see items 1 through 4. there's a few POs that are highlighted. 
 

You'll look at the quantity received versus the quantity ordered. Ah, looks like some of these are received over what was expected on the order. So then that way you can identify these opportunities, from here. and these will help, relate to those overage finds you'll see in SQEP, where they're comparing the order and the received quantities. 
 

Next step, once you've identified the opportunities, These are the POs in which we've seen billable overages. Let's go to our invoicing system, whether it's third party, if it's in house, whatever is your normal process, and let's go through and go ahead and invoice for that extra product. and, that way Walmart can process it in the normal processes, and then hopefully get paid at the end of the day for the product you're you're owed. 
 

so you'll go through those normal processes there. After that, you'll watch repayment. and also in addition of course watch for deductions. They tend to pay the new invoices in full approximately 60 to 90 percent. it's a little bit of a range in terms of what we see historically. some though will have deductions on them for the whole invoice. 
 

That's the code 25. And some may have, deductions of other sorts, the 22s, 24s. those are still winnable, not to be afraid. you'll be able to go after those through the normal process in APDP. provide the documentation that we've described before. Those received reports. Any sort of shipping documentation And then you can provide those to you go along with the dispute. 
 

Dispute any of those deductions by providing this proof, like I said, that these items were shipped and received. Even including ASN data to extra proof on, hey, According to the ASN that we sent you, this is what we, said we shipped. 
 

So the deduction workflow, you guys might know, but we're going to go over this. review deductions daily or weekly, it's very important. as you're shipping out daily, weekly, monthly orders, you'll want to keep up with deductions just as often. so you'll want to do a little bit of research, go through a validity check, review the proof documentation, communicate with your teams internally. 
 

is this particular deduction or deductions, are they invalid or valid? That way you can now take some action. On the valid side, okay. You know what, Walmart? You're right. We did short ship this here, unfortunate, but now we know we can move on from this situation. We can ride this off. We can learn and communicate this. 
 

Maybe there are root causes that, took place to, for us to ship short. Or maybe there is something else, that happened in which Walmart didn't receive the product correctly. And we want to learn from that and grow from that, and in that way we get to more situations. where they're actually invalid. 
 

Walmart makes mistakes sometimes, and there are sometimes, cases where they will issue a deduction in which they're invalid. You'll want to organize your proof, the, stuff that you were looking at to make that judgment, and then provide a dispute attempt in APDP for those. Alright, getting a little bit into the OTIF disputing process, like I mentioned before, this recurs on a quarterly basis, instead of a monthly basis like it used to be. 
 

You'll dispute these in high radius if the issue has been, or if the fine has been issued, and then any other case you would bring to your buyer on a more case to case basis. So you want to check your OTIF scorecard weekly, you'll see the projected fine, and then once those become official, you'll dispute those in high radius and you gather the proper documentation and you can monitor in high radius for approval, and then ensure payback thereafter if you were approved for anything. 
 

Alrighty. Understanding the SQEP disputing workflow. It's going to look pretty similar, recurring on a quarterly basis as well. Understanding the phases and what the defects mean to best dispute. Review the SQEP scorecard. Identify what phase are they, billing us for in terms of the particular fines and the defects? 
 

go ahead and do that validity check with the proof documentation you have, communicate with your teams and then make a similar decision. Is this valid? Is this invalid? If it's valid, go ahead and write it off. Learn from it, grow from it. if it's invalid, go ahead and organize your proof and dispute in high radius. 
 

Or if it's actually a projected fine, You can go to fix it and actually navigate through that process and dispute before they become official fine before they hit a check, which that can be very important as you can avoid losing money on a check and have to recover it later. you can also utilize, SQEP images. 
 

to identify, the validity of these, these finds and issues. That can be very important and Fixit can help, help you navigate there, or you can find it in the SQEP scorecard. and then going from there, on either way, there, there are some prevention measures. You can save documentation, share your learnings with cross functional teams, and learn and grow from there. 
 

fighting SQEP overages, some prevention, some suppliers use different colored stickers on boxes that are from different POs on a stack to avoid receiving errors. Confirming that fulfillment information is correctly flowing through the warehouse. Checking your EDI. Confirm that your items are set up correctly. 
 

That's very important as well. And then on the disputing side, like we mentioned, you'll dispute these in high radius. You'll look for shortages that match overages. If this is correct, Talk to your buyer or dispute with that information about the shortage in high radius. Preferably you want to dispute in high radius. 
 

You want to make sure that is taken care of and anything beyond that you can escalate with your buyer, but go through the normal processes first in high radius. DSS data can be used to match up invalid overages. However, as DSS is sunsetted, you can use SupplierOne or Illuminate to identify some of this data that you'll need to make these, judgments. 
 

All right.  
 

[00:41:50] Allie: Awesome. Thank you, Hudson. That was a lot of content, so thank you for going through that so eloquently. I love when we get to talk about overages because it really does touch a lot of different areas of revenue loss. We covered compliance with SQEP, the SQEP program, and the OTIV program, as well as it touches other deductions, so great stuff. 
 

Round of applause for Hudson. As we get into the Q& A, go ahead and send in those last minute questions. Hudson, I'm trying to give you a second to catch a breath because that was great. We had a solid, bit of content there. But if I'm a supplier and I'm the only one on my team that's going to be looking at overages and, front lines, I'm going to be the one disputing them. 
 

What's my game plan since we only have a couple more days left in 2024?  
 

[00:42:38] Hudson: Yeah, that's a great question. definitely looking historically, there are going to be opportunities to go after 2023 and 2024 overages after this year. So what I would make sure to do, let's look historically, let's look back at the data within RetailLink, let's identify those overage opportunities like I mentioned, in SupplierOne, in Nova, and let's, compare those, quantities between what was ordered, what was received, and even what was paid, and let's identify the most historical opportunities, and let's get on, let's get the ball rolling on what it would look like to invoice those billable overages. 
 

[00:43:14] Allie: Awesome, I appreciate that. My other question is, I know we're going to get into the product preview here in a second. When we're thinking about how manual it is when it comes to disputing overages, if I'm just doing it by myself, doing it in Walmart's systems, what's the stats or what you've seen when you've talked to other suppliers on how long it takes and some of the roadblocks they've faced? 
 

[00:43:38] Hudson: Yeah, that's a great question. Understandably, some of this can be a little bit more manual. You will go through normal invoicing processes. However, because of these are going to be related to POs that have been billed for before, what I would recommend is finding the best process at first for your first invoice. 
 

In whatever method you're going through, a lot of times you can create a template. if I were in the supplier's shoes, I would create a template for overage invoices. And in that way, in the future, you turn those 30 minute processes into 10 to 15 minutes, even, less than that. And then once they have a process nailed down, then they can establish a cadence in which, hey, weekly, monthly. 
 

We start to look at historical overages and start to look at what opportunities we already have a template in place or a process in place internally, and we can go about those correctly and more efficiently. But taking the time first to establish that process, it might be a little bit manual at first, but then going through that is well worth your time for the future. 
 

[00:44:40] Allie: Awesome. one more question, unless I get any more in the chat. The question is, we talked about a couple of the different compliance programs and deductions, ways that you can get overages. There's basically three ways, tell me if I'm wrong, but that's what I'm hearing. You've got your deductions bucket, the AP deductions, you have OTIF, and then you have the SQEP program. 
 

From some of the information you've seen from suppliers, Which ones are easier to go ahead and try and build out that template and start disputing? Which ones can be harder? are there any, situations where you're seeing a pattern there?  
 

[00:45:19] Hudson: Yeah, that's a great question. I would say, yeah, there's about three ways in which this can happen. 
 

And you concluded the fourth way of actually billing for overages and the invoicing process. That's probably the most manual way. definitely the most fruitful way for sure. to make sure you're getting, you're capturing those opportunities. when it comes to the AP deductions, 22s, 24s, 25s, I would say that's the easier process when you've billed for the overage or you've seen the related shortage. 
 

Walmart has a very, good process in APDP that's, moderately simple to navigate relative to the other processes. And so that's a great way to, keep up with any shortages that are related to whether you build for the overage or if it's an overage that stemmed from a shortage. Going through that process there. 
 

and those are more recoverable than the OTIF and SQEP side of things. So in the other two ways, OTIF, a lot more data to gather, for the dispute process within High Radius, and Walmart doesn't, seem to approve as much on the OTIF side or even the SQEP side, related to overages, but it's definitely worth an attempt, once you've gathered the data to go through those processes, so that's what I would say. 
 

[00:46:38] Allie: That makes sense. And even to your point earlier, if you're having on the same invoice, overage issues or just different types of revenue loss in OTIF or SQEP, and it's on the same invoice, if you're saving that proof documentation, you can go ahead and pull that over into the other disputes that you're doing, saving yourself significant time when you add it all up with all the polling and documentation that you have to do. 
 

Beautiful. thank you, Hudson. We'll go ahead and end the Q& A for now. Thank you everyone for joining. We're not done yet, but if this is where you have to leave us, we totally understand. While Hudson is pulling up the SupplyPike for Walmart product, I just want to thank everyone for joining us. We do have a couple more webinars. 
 

in December, and then we'll take a short break, and we will see you about mid January. So looking forward to having you guys on other webinars. And if you see success in disputing your overages and you want to celebrate a win, please forward it to us. We'll share our emails here in a second. we'd love to support you if you're working on that, or just celebrate if you're winning, your overages back. 
 

So Perfect. Hudson's got the overages, page up from the application. I do want to give just a PSA here. This is SupplyPike's product. So this is not something that you can access on RetailLink or any of Walmart's platforms. This is something that SupplyPike has created, and this is our solution for suppliers to make that process a little bit easier. 
 

So Hudson will get into that now.

[00:48:16] Hudson: Yeah, appreciate it, Ali. we're here, joining our favorite Scranton PA, paper company, Dunder Mifflin. this is our demo account. but yeah, like Ali mentioned, there's not one particular place in RetailLink in which you can find this particular information. 
 

We've, we've created Logic and, went through a process to identify billable overages in our own way, looking at a couple different sources within RetailLink using Walmart's data in order to identify these opportunities. So as you'll see here, we have opportunities up through July currently. We do have a gap in place, so like I mentioned before, where the timing matters, you want to make sure that all the relevant data is up to date, For receiving, for invoicing, for payment, all of that. 
 

And then that way you make sure you're not jumping the gun on invoicing for overages and making mistake on billing for something that Walmart could have received and paid for, but the data wasn't finalized just yet. So we put a conservative gap in place to make sure that those opportunities are solid and more set in stone, and then we can show them as an opportunity. 
 

So like Allie mentioned, This would be a part of the deductions solution in terms of a subscription. And so we're showing these opportunities and as we're taking a look here, we go back pretty far in terms of what current data we might have for you if you're a current supplier. and so taking a look back as we've been talking about 2022, you'll see that Dunder Mifflin does have a few opportunities, so we'll have to reach out to them and make sure that they capture these opportunities. 
 

and so looking back you can see that we're, we're stretching all the way back through 2022 based on the data you have with us, and we will identify the POs that are related to these outreaches. the steps you'll want to take, in using this, functionality is, so we're handling 80 percent of the workload when it comes to buildable overages. 
 

we're going to be helping with identifying those opportunities. So we're, doing the validation and the logic in, behind the scenes, doing all that research and work for you, identifying it, presenting it. When you select a few of these months, you can actually download and look at detailed overages, which is going to provide, all of the PO lines that are on a particular PO that in which we saw an overage, give you all the information, all the details you could possibly want in one Excel document, and then you can start to proceed from there, or if you're like, hey, I don't really need to see the details all on one page, Just show me what I need to bill for and let's go line by line. 
 

That's going to be our billable origin support. We're going to get straight to the point. We're going to give you fields in which you'll need to actually go and turn around an invoice for, and it's all going to be there in one sheet. and at the end of this process, we've. passed along this, overreach report. 
 

the team is going to get together, and this is actually, this is not actually in SupplyPike today in which we're invoicing on your behalf. This is, the supplier going in. Going through that process and creating the template and, invoicing normally as they would. after they've invoiced for those overages, you can now see, all right, hands are off. 
 

They're in Walmart's system. Walmart's going to process them as they do. They're going to pay them in full or they're going to deduct it. on the other side of things, we can, now see that In these particular columns right here, we'll identify the invoiced amount, the paid amount, and potentially the deducted amount, depending on how things shake out. 
 

And we'll detect these as, as these invoices for older POs, new invoice numbers, when they hit a check. And we'll identify how much you've invoiced for, how much you then got paid for it, and then how much might have been deducted. That way you have all that information, and if you need to share this, if you need to have some more details on what this involves, we do have a paid overages report, so you'll select the time periods in which you want to see the invoiced overages for those particular months. 
 

and then download that report, then you'll see all the relevant information you need to reconcile this and move forward from this. And then that way, hands are clean, we can move on, this is great, we've captured those opportunities, let's move on to a different opportunity, whether it's still within Overages or a different RevLoss opportunity. 
 

so it's all encompassing, and like I mentioned, we're not actually invoicing on your behalf, but we're providing all the relevant information and helping you track. what happens afterwards within our software in our application. And so we'll provide all the relevant data you need and provide additional details to help provide context on, okay, what else happened on this PO? 
 

Oh, there was a shortage, we'll identify that there. but that shortage was denied, so that's why we're presenting it as an opportunity and so showcasing that there. and so this is the, the function that we have, in SupplyPike around billable overages that's been very useful. 
 

We've seen a lot of success in helping suppliers identify these opportunities, and recovering what they're owed. 
 

[00:53:47] Allie: Awesome. Thank you so much, Hudson, for walking through this and for walking through all of our content today. And thank you for everyone who stuck around for today's presentation and our product preview. 
 

I'm sending a message now that you can check us out at supplypike. com or you can email me if you have more questions about overages. I can also connect you to Hudson or any of the relevant team members that we have at SupplyPike. Thank you guys again. Happy to see you on a webinar and hope to see you at the next one. 
 

Take care.