Optimizing Walmart Overages

[00:00:00] Danielle: Welcome, everybody. We are so glad that you are able to join us for this webinar. Today, we are going to be going over optimizing Walmart overages. Before we start, we always like to introduce ourselves. My name is Danielle Gloy. I will be monitoring the chat today and then leading our content is the wonderful Allie Truong. 
 

So our job is to research and write about topics that are helpful and insightful for suppliers like you. Which if this is your first time joining one of our webinars, we are part of SupplierWiki, which is like the educational arm of SupplyPike. So we help create free educational resources like these webinars. 
 

We have multiple eBooks that cover content across different retailers. We do a variety of articles and we also address a lot of retailer updates and news in our Venerable Newsletter. So if you want to stay in the loop, you can always sign up for our newsletter on our website. So moving on to the agenda, we have a packed one for this hour. 
 

We are going to start off the content portion by doing an introduction to what overages at Walmart are, where they stem from and why they occur. we will go over how overages may be affecting your business. This is where we'll be, we will be taking a look at areas like OTIF, SQEP, and short shipping deductions. 
 

Then we will move on to a more action oriented section where we will break down the steps that can be taken to prevent, dispute, and rebuild overages. Finally, we will be opening the floor for some Q& A time towards the end, and then we will wrap up the webinar with a product preview of SupplyPike for Walmart. 
 

So we have a lot of good content to cover today. Alright, so here are a few FAQs that we typically get during webinars. So first being, will we be getting a copy of the slide deck? Yes, absolutely. You can expect to see the PDF version of this slide deck, as well as the recording of this webinar, appear in your email inbox in about 10 minutes. 
 

And if you ever want to find another webinar that you maybe weren't able to attend, you can go to our website where you'll find the recordings there, as well as the PDF versions of the slide decks that you can just download. And then the second question that we typically get is, What is the best way to ask a question? 
 

So at the bottom of your screen you'll see a Q& A tab that has two little speech bubbles and this is where we ask you to please submit any questions related to the content as I will be able to monitor them and then tee them up for Allie for the Q& A time at the end. If you have any, Questions about the content, send them in early. 
 

I may interject sometime during the webinar if there is a question that is pertinent to the content that Allie is going through at that time, but for the most part I will be saving them for the end. So last little thing before we get into the content, SupplyPike is a platform designed to help suppliers get paid and get better. 
 

So we do this with a software that identifies, recovers, and prevents deductions and compliance issues. We do this in a lot of different ways with multiple different retailers, like Amazon, Target, Home Depot, Kroger, Walmart, the list just keeps growing. And some things we cover at Walmart specifically include like AP deductions, OTIF, SQEP, Overages. 
 

so anything that could be impacting your bottom line. We have built these tools to help target and resolve those revenue loss issues. And just a little shout out, we work with a lot of great suppliers. We have some of them up here on the slide today. And if you aren't currently working with us, we would love to see your brand's logo up here in the future. 
 

And with that, I will hand it over to Allie to get into today's content. 
 

[00:03:50] Allie: Awesome. Thank you, Danielle. And thank you guys for joining us on today's webinar. We're going to be talking about overages at Walmart. I really like doing this webinar in particular, just because overages have kind of their hands in a lot of different areas of compliance and deductions. 
 

and there's different ways that you can recover that revenue. So to me, it's a fun topic because it can really get into some of the other, across the board of Walmart's, revenue loss, bucket. So we'll get into that today. One thing, we're 90 percent educational. We try to keep it real here and just give you guys the information that you need that's helpful to being suppliers. 
 

We are at the end going to talk about the overage feature that we have in SupplyPike. So it's a way to make it a little bit easier for you guys. So if you're a customer, you don't currently have that, we'll talk about that. Or if you are like, what is SupplyPike? I don't know what you're talking about. Is that a App, is that a product?

What is that? We'll talk about that at the end, so stay tuned for that. All right, let's get into just defining what overages are at Walmart specifically. So no matter where you're at when it comes to the retailer, An overage is essentially going to be the amount of product that a retailer ordered is in excess, so they receive in excess what they ordered. 
 

And then we've also got Walmart's definition here, and we feel like it's important to include the retailer's exact words on a subject because it can vary. from retailer to retailer. So let's say if you're an Amazon supplier as well, this will apply, but be sure to read how they are identifying overages and their process. 
 

Same with Target. Just because it's Not always apples to apples, so wanted to clarify that. Walmart's definition is that the amount of inventory stock exceeds the inventory expected, so that makes sense. And then we've got our example down here as well. Let's say Walmart invoiced you for the three juice boxes, but then it gets the DC and they receive six. 
 

Let's talk about now the two ways of understanding overages. So that's, one example that we've walked through that those basics, but there's a couple of different ways that those can occur, ways that Walmart identifies them and root causes that can, create these overages. So the first that we're going to talk about is billable overages. 
 

And as I'm breaking these down, they're going to have some overlap, but I'll make sure to tease out the differences for you guys here. So first off billable overages. are when you're sending too many units to Walmart, and it describes a situation where revenue has been lost because Walmart's not going to pay for the extra items received. 
 

And these are going to be considered billable, meaning you can send Walmart an invoice because you've sent, you've had success billing Walmart for those extra items. and they're, to be clear, usually not tied to a fine, fee, or deduction. I'm saying usually because we've separated them out here, an overage fine, but there is some times where there's a bit of overlap. 
 

but that's going to be more of an edge case. So billable overages are overages that you've, done this classic example and you've sent, six. of those juice boxes, you can actually send another invoice to Walmart for the three additional juice boxes to pay for that additional inventory. 
 

All right, now let's talk about overages, overage fines as well. Overage fines are Walmart's way of de incentivizing sending too much product to a DEC. So let's just go back to, pause there, think about billable overages. Let's say, you've sent billable overages, that happens. You have extra product. 
 

Let's say you're a supplier doing that in excess. this is a way that Walmart would then send you a fine saying, Hey, we understand things happen. Sometimes, a P. O. gets duplicated or there's just another error. Maybe you get a fine for that in a separate area, but essentially, they're saying there's a limit to how much you can bill overages, and we're gonna issue a fine because we don't want extra inventory. 
 

We'll get into the reasons why Walmart wouldn't want extra inventory, but I'm sure you guys can make those conclusions on your own as well. and you can see overage fines in the SQEP program specifically, and we'll get into what SQEP stands for, the Supplier Quality Excellence Program, if you're not familiar, and those fines are going to be sent to the supplier as a failure to comply to PO accuracy, because that's a standard that Walmart wants suppliers to adhere to. 
 

these are the two examples. You can see where they can start to overlap. Let's say you're a supplier who has You know, build for overages and then you get an overage find. That's where those would start to overlap. so clarifying those, two pieces there. Let's talk about some of the root causes of those and how they'll define if you have a billable overage or an overage find. 
 

So true overages And Shortage Triggered Overages are the two main root cause types that we're going to talk about today. There are obviously other ones, and feel free to add if you guys have seen overages, some of the examples that you may have seen that we're not talking about today. This is a learning community, so we want to share with each other the things to avoid, and the things to try, because they are successful. 
 

But essentially, True overages are going to be when you really did send, six juice boxes and the invoice said three. it's really cut and dry. it could be down to an item setup issue, it could be down to, a PO got duplicated, you entered a manual order incorrectly into Nova, things like that. 
 

That's how those could occur. Then there's shortage triggered overages. And like I said at the top of the hour, I enjoy talking about overages because there's a lot of ways that it ties into other compliance programs and fees and deductions, and it can create a whole mess, but it's like a puzzle that you can then correct and not have that issue occur in the same way. 
 

So with shortage triggered overages, this is when a PO number if a truck has a PO number and it's got multiple POs on a truck. So let's walk through this. Let's say you sent Walmart six juice boxes. We'll go back to our initial example. And one is going to DC1. The other is going to DC2. you get an overage and you get a shortage on a couple POs or the same PO, and you're wondering what's going on. 
 

looks like DC1 received the overage because it got three extra juice boxes, and DC2 received zero juice boxes. So you can see what occurred. Essentially, In transit, something happened, and it's at the responsibility of, either whether you're prepaid or collect, Walmart, or then your 3PL that is delivering for you, why that particular order didn't go to DC1. 
 

So that's when you can dispute those together, and we'll talk about that later. But those are the two main ways that we've seen with suppliers we've worked with over in just showing up. And I did already allude to this, but there's several reasons why overages may occur. It may be because of a shortage, what we walked through here just a second ago. 
 

It could be POs got sent to the wrong DC. you're getting a code 25 at DC1, they're saying no merchandise showed up, but all the POs got sent to DC2, and so you're dealing with that. And that kind of, It turns into a shortage related overage as well. Another can just be inaccurate demand planning. 
 

let's say that it's the Christmas season and you think that, you're a toy supplier and you're going to have X amount, and then, either something with negotiating with your buyer, wires get crossed. And you're sending, you've got way too much product and you're sending way too much product to DCs, in regards to whatever your merchant team is asking for. 
 

So that could be an example. Another is issues in Nova. So I talked about Nova. That is the OrderValidationSystem and EditingTool, CancellationTool for, not import suppliers, but the majority of Walmart, suppliers who are using RetailLink. We do have a webinar on that and some articles so we can send those over. 
 

but like I said, it's a lot of the, that's where you do manual generated POs rather than system generated. So if you're setting that up wrong or incorrectly, there's ways that you could create an overage in that if you're not familiar. another is issues with packaging and labeling. This is going to go under SQEP, which we'll talk about in Phase 2 and 3. 
 

Today we're going to focus mostly on Phase 1. But you can have issues with labeling and packaging that make it look like you have a shortage with your packaging. Maybe the, labels are set up incorrectly and it's saying that you only have three juice boxes in your master pack, but there's really six, or vice versa. 
 

And then another is issues with item 360. This is now changing to item management on, SupplierOne. If you're like, what is SupplierOne? I haven't logged into retail Lincoln a little bit. We'll send you a webinar just to get you up to speed in a couple articles. But essentially item 360 is, sun setting and item management, which is under the SupplierOne tool is going to be your item management platform. 
 

You can have issues with that. The most common one we see with suppliers is that they're setting up the warehouse pack incorrectly. They're not familiar with that term. We also have webinars on that, to walk through what a case pack is, what a master pack is, what a warehouse pack is, what a break pack is.

if you're setting that up wrong, you can create a shortage really easily or an overage really easy. So you want to make sure you have your math right on that. And like I said, question for the chat, if you've got some other root causes, I'm going to look at the chat right now just to see. Amy talked about receiving errors. 
 

Yep, that's one that we see a lot too. probably 99 percent of them. Yep, I've definitely seen that. And we'll talk a little bit here too, about some of the OTIF and we'll talk about receiving errors in here as well. Love that you guys are sharing that. So thank you. All right, here's just another illustration on the ripple effect that can have from shortages. 
 

So you'll hear me mention this today, but this is really a best practice when it comes to dealing with Walmart AP deductions or Walmart revenue loss in general, is making sure you know which codes seem to Play with others. And by that I mean if you're going to dispute in AP DP and you have a code 25, it may be worth it to go look at the overage codes and see if there's one on the same PO or if saving that proof documentation and looking at it when it's time to dispute your O, your OIF fines or your sweat fines, because they do tend to play together. 
 

And it can be a really. low hanging fruit, if you're saving that proof documentation, if you have it documented, that it is invalid, to then apply it to another one of those revenue programs, or compliance programs, rather. So again, just to illustrate this ripple effect, is you would have one DC that would receive Over, and you're getting an overage for that. 
 

And then you're seeing that shortage on the other side at a different DC. And while this is a headache to sort out when it comes to, just reading your deductions, this is causing real supply chain issues. and that's why Walmart has put These different compliance programs in place, but you want to understand why that's happening and how you can remedy that. 
 

Whether it's, working with your 3PLs or digging into the receiving issues, and understanding, what's happening that's creating, a problem like this because it's going to have an impact on your deductions, of course, but also your business and ultimately your relationship with Walmart. 
 

All right, so it's my last slide on the impact of shortages, overages. So just to sum up, you can receive a deduction, and it's going to affect your compliance, your fill rate compliance with, Walmart. So your OTIF score is going to drop. you won't be fulfilling those units. You could have a deduction paired with that overage. 
 

So you could have a code 22, 24, 25 with that overage. So there's two deductions there. And then because Walmart's compliance programs don't talk to each other. They're siloed entities, meaning, APDeductions is its one team, SQEP is its own team, OTIF's kind of its own team. you may see a SQEP bind for this overage as well. 
 

They really try to make sure they're not overlapping those, but it's just a really complicated and complex, system that we have seen suppliers Get an overage fine in AP deductions, get hit in OTIF because they're not receiving those full units, and having a SQEP overage fine. So you really want to make sure that you are, understanding where this is, nipping in the bud as quickly as you can, and then also reapplying those learnings so it's not happening again. 
 

Because this is on one PO level and it can be translated to, whole invoices or multiple POs. We're going to talk a little bit now about how overages affect your business. and I've already talked about this, so I'm going to move right through. All of these are going to have a fee or a fine attached to them, but they're all disputable. 
 

So you can actually go in and dispute short shipping, deductions, SQEP fines and OTIV fines. They're in different workflows. You do them different ways. And then for overages, We're talking about overage fines right now. That's how you dispute those a different way. With billable overages, that's even another process that you're adding on this. 
 

So it's important to think about the ROI here of, if I have a team to go dispute these, I should definitely go do that. There's a lot of overlap. let's figure out a workflow or system to build out this process to make sure that we're, we're covering this lost revenue. but again, it can be a little bit convoluted and it can cause some issues in your supply chain, obviously, and have major effects. 
 

So here's an outline of some of the. codes that may be playing with your overages to look out for. We're going to talk through these a little bit, but I'll also be calling out some additional resources. So if you're not familiar with AP deduction disputing, we'll talk about that. If you're not familiar with OTIF, Walmart's compliance program for on time and in full, we'll talk about that. 
 

And then with SQEP, the Supplier Quality Excellence Program, we'll talk about what that overage fine looks like as well. and just to communicate here, I've got it outlined, this is the Walmart program. So there's three different programs listed here. There's codes within each of those that Align to those programs so they have their own language for codes. 
 

And then I'll talk about what those codes mean. So if you're ever seeing a code 22, 24, or 25, it is some kind of shipping shortage code. and we've already talked a lot about how overages and shortages play together. We're also going to talk about code 95s, which if you ever see like a 90s code, that's going to be A return code. 
 

So we'll talk about how overages can play with returns. We're going to go into in full on the OTIF program. So what's great about OTIF is usually they will only ding you for on time or in full. And when it comes to overages, they really are just dinging you for in full because you're not, sending the correct quantity of product. 
 

Even if it's over, that's considered an incorrect quantity. And then we'll talk about how SQEP defines overages and how they actually distribute fines, which is different than the other two programs we've talked about. Alright, like I said, you see a code 22, that's probably going to be, or a code in the 20s, it's probably going to be a short chipping code. 
 

The difference, and this is exactly how Walmart talks about them, is in the details. we have an ebook that actually walks through every code, what it means, what you need to dispute, where you dispute it. I'm going to show you how to do that in just a second. But essentially, Code 22 is when, that's your classic shortage. 
 

So it's when the quantity of an item on the invoice does not match the quantity that the facility says that it receives. So it's going to be, less than whatever is supposed to be on the PO. Code 24 is an overage, and so those will usually go together. and that's when it's a shipper invoice to have more than it's received on the purchase order. 
 

And then Code 25 says, are triggered when Walmart receives nothing. So you can see how code 22s and 25s will probably play together, or rather code 22s and 24s will play together, or code 24s and 25s will play together. And then we're going to talk a little bit about, Walmart and its compliance rates. 
 

So the compliance rates have recently changed. this used to be 98%, so Walmart had a high bar for their fill rate. They've recently taken this down to 95. Still in the 90s, still a tall order compared to some other retailers that you may work with. and then the cost of that is going to be for any non compliant cases. 
 

3 percent of cost of goods sold. So you can see the impact. You can start to see the dollar signs adding up there. and something to point out is Deductions, if you're familiar, AP deductions, like we talked about with the code 22s, those are actually disputable in APDP. That's a portal, or that's an app in RetailLink, so that's the supplier portal that you're all probably well familiar with. 
 

OTIF fines and SQEP fines are actually not disputed. in RetailLink. They're disputable through HiRadius. So if you haven't logged into HiRadius, if you're unfamiliar, we have ran into some suppliers who are unaware of how you dispute those, you can log into HiRadius, go through your site admin, with RetailLink. 
 

They'll get you access to that. And you can actually see your, finds in HighRadius, so your OTIF finds and your SQEP finds. You can also see, this has actually changed recently, and I was talking to someone, who's joined our webinars in the past. The Collect Pickup Program fees are billed there. 
 

Those have changed to fuel management fees, and they'll still be billable in High Radius as well, or paid in High Radius as well. High Radius is a great platform to know some of the costs that you're incurring when it comes to working with Walmart outside of, Some of the, basic information of understanding that. 
 

So go check out High Radius if you haven't logged in there, that's really helpful tool. And just to call out some best practices with info in particular, obviously forecast sales, So if you're having supply chain issues, this was really, key, especially 2022, 2021, 2020. If you're having issues and you're not able to fulfill something in full, obviously this is an Overages webinar, so we're actually having the opposite problem. 
 

But again, if you're having issues, And just, work with Walmart, work with your merchant team to like forecast sales. Revisit that conversation if you're seeing constant billable overages, what's going on, is there a miscommunication there? Because you want to be able to meet the needs of your merchant team and get them the right quantity. 
 

And then also apply that other places in your supply chain and not, shorting other retailers. that's it. And then the last is just over communicating. If you are having those issues, especially if you're going to be under your, forecasted inventory, communicate that as early as possible, so that you can come up with a plan. 
 

Again, more for shortages, but those can go hand in hand with overages, as well. All right, and then this is just more of a PSA. we have a lot of questions on MABD Windows when it comes to talking about OTIF, so we would be remiss if we didn't include this. But essentially, if you are having issues with, your inventory getting there, a little too early and getting a fine on the on time charge or getting there late and having a fine on, on time as well. 
 

Here's the outline of kind of those delivery times and the windows that you have there. We also have a new article, listing Walmart's updated 2024 MAPD windows. So go check those out. It hasn't changed too much, but wanted to just call out how this works. All right, and then SQEP finds, we, talked about OTIF, the other compliance program. 
 

I like to refer to SQEP as the sister or cousin to OTIF. It just goes more in depth, with these particular phases. Walmart rolled this out a couple of years ago is aimed at improving shipping and receiving, and just making sure that the supply chain had less defects. and so the one that we're going to be focusing on the most today is phase one with PO accuracy and advanced ship notice. 
 

So ASNs. but here's just. A list of the other phases, barcode and labeling, load quality, label quality, packaging, and then scheduling and transportation hasn't rolled out yet, but that's been on Walmart's docket for a while, so we're including that here. what I'll say about phase two and phase three, we have lots of resources on SQEP documentation, so I won't get into these. 
 

What I'll make note is if you're seeing a ton of phase two and phase three, go read the secondary packaging guide, That's going to be helpful for phase one as well, but Walmart really breaks down what's going on in there, and we have a resource that summarizes a lot of that content, because it is 230 pages of detailed information on barcode labeling, load quality, Palettes, et cetera. 
 

But again, we're focusing on phase one. And phase one has a couple of different finds within it. but just note that all of these are disputable in high radius. and there's other apps that you can get information on. I'm sure Danielle is blowing up the chat with those, fix it. So you can actually get pictures and more information. 
 

And then also you have a SQEP dashboard, so you can look at those as well. So here's a list of the phase one, SQEP. and this, let's go back to the conversation about receiving that we mentioned earlier being a root cause. These might be helpful to look into to see what's going on. Of course, there's going to be invalid finds or there's going to be valid finds. 
 

We'll, talk about that, towards the end. But here's the breakdown of what those phases could be. that at the very top, in phase one, you've got an overage. That's the defect description. and they've, included that definition as well. But you can also see, as you go down, there's other really helpful information. 
 

on those defects to what's going on and where you can start digging. phase two and phase three can also contribute to overages I want to call out. I did mention that at the top of the hour. So if you're having label issues and your label and the barcode when it's scanned, it really is scanning and saying, hey, there's three, juice boxes in here when there's really six, that's going to create, an overage as well. 
 

So you'll want to Line those up if you're seeing a lot of the same story and figure out what that issue is, determine if it's invalid or valid, and then figure out if you need to go, make some adjustments to your supply chain or your processes, or figure out the best story and the correct proof documentation to go dispute all of those. 
 

Alright, so we're going to move on to preventing and disputing overages. I've alluded to this a little bit, but this is, possible and this is something that we help suppliers do, every day. So when it comes to fighting overages, let's talk about if we're discussing billable versus non billable overage Fines. 
 

So if it's a billable, so I'm not talking about OverageFinds here, I would invoice the retailer for those, excessive goods. Huge call out. Do not use the same invoice number and just update it. Create a new invoice. What you'll do is just reference the original product number, order specifically. And only, this is really important, includes the overage amount, not the cases in the original order. 
 

So if you're writing it, just for example, let's say, we're going to go back to our juice box example, let's say that you sent six, you've already got the invoice from the original order that was 3, so those are accounted for. What you'll do is write a new invoice referencing the original product order number, outlining what's going on, and only include the other 3 that were not on the original order. 
 

that's it. What you need to note here is you've done that correctly, but it still may be rejected, but you can then go succeed in recovering the overage value through the dispute process. So there are kind of these checks and balances that if you have a billable overage, you can wait and then you can dispute those because they'll probably come through as an overage finder as well. 
 

You'll just want to make sure that if you are invoicing the for excessive goods, you're not. double dipping, because that's going to come back whether it's in this particular instance. So let's say you billed, you got your money paid back, there was still an overage fine, you disputed that, you got your money back for both instances. 
 

This is something that would definitely show up in an audit situation where Walmart would then say as they're going back and doing their two to three years back, audits, that would probably be something that would get flagged and you'd have to, pay that additional amount anyways. So just to create less headache for yourself, make sure that you're not, getting paid for a billable overage and then an overage fine if it comes through that channel. 
 

And then this is the dispute workflow that we talk through. This is something that we've broken out, for different dispute types. first start with research when it comes to overages. Make sure you understand what's going on, if it's valid, if it's tied to other particular shortages or other deduction codes. 
 

Make sure that you're saving that proof documentation. For teams that go and dispute OTIF fines or SQEP fines or AP deductions. And then first start with invoicing Walmart. So you're hoping that Walmart pays that whole invoice and that's squared away, but in the case that they don't and you receive a deduction of Some of the invoice, all of the invoice, or an OTIF fine or a SQEP fine. 
 

You already have your proof documentation laid out. Maybe you need to go get some additional proof documentation, like pulling in the invoice that you sent and they rejected, and then going and disputing that in the correct channel. If it's a code 24, you're going to do that in APDP, in RetailLink. 
 

If not, you're going to do it in high radius for SQEP and OTIF. All right, so this is some DSS reporting tips for proof documentation, so I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on this, but just know I'll talk through a little bit, some of the ways you can think about it in Luminate and how you can think about it in programs like Nova. 
 

So this is the old way of doing this. You used to Pull an inventory receipt report to verify how much product Walmart received and then you could dispute by providing both of those invoices or BOL or the MABD report with overages highlighted. So there's ways to pull this information. it used to be a little bit easier to go into DSS. 
 

You can still pull some of this information In Luminate. and if someone has built out a report like this or used one of the canned reports that Luminate provides, let us know in the chat and we'd love to hear how you've built that out. so that was for a true overage or, a billable overage. 
 

For shortage triggered overages, you can use the MABD report fields in DSS. You can also pull some of this information in NOVA. just wanted to outline how we've done this before, but again, because DSS. is sunsetted. It is not, no longer accessible for suppliers. You can pull this in some other areas as well. 
 

All right. And then here's just the full deduction dispute workflow. So this is how a supplier, could pull really any deductions. This is the most high level that you could get. So you can see, you're reviewing those deductions daily or weekly, some kind of cadence that you're on. You're researching, deciding if they're valid. 
 

Meaning, okay, yes, on our side, this is something we're responsible for. And you learn and communicate from that. take the L and, pay for that deduction or OTIF fine and try to avoid that in the future. Or you realize that it isn't valid. It is actually Walmart's responsibility. You shouldn't have to pay this particular fine. 
 

It's considered invalid. So then you organize that proof documentation and you just beat that through the proper channel. And then just to outline how you can do that. So this is really overall to get a little bit more nitty gritty when it comes to OTIF. So if you're seeing in full fines for overages, this is going to occur on a monthly basis. 
 

Like I said before, you did, you do it in high radius. and then, In the past, if you've been with Walmart for a while as a supplier, you will have remembered that OTIF fines were not disputable at one point, and if you had a major issue, you could go to your buyer. Really now, it's completely, within high radius, and that's not a time that you would ever pull your buyer in, because you do have your OTIF scorecard, which you should be checking weekly to see for some of those, projective fines, and then you can dispute those in high radius. 
 

If you're seeing a large issue, you can still bring in your buyer to help with some of these issues. Again, it's very much case by case. The severity of the situation and the relationship with your buyer should be taken into account. but really high radius should be your go to and usually you can go in there and get that, disputed and get a response pretty quickly. 
 

in a timely manner. And then SQEP has got its own. I'm not going to go into this too much. Again, if you are having a lot of issues with SQEP phase two or three, we've got, or phase one, any of the SQEP phases, we've got different resources for that. but it's going to feel very similar to OTIF. It occurs on a monthly basis. 
 

SQEP has its own scorecard for projected finds. You really just need to determine what phase it's in, review any documentation you can get on SQEP. Where they're finding that information, why they're associating it with an overage, if it has any documentation in Fixit, which is essentially a portal for, any receiving, they'll actually take pictures, of different, situations to give more proof documentation, so looking at those. 
 

And then doing that validity check and then learning about prevention, whether it's valid or invalid. again, walking through this, I won't spend too much time here, but something we have heard is some suppliers using different colored stickers on boxes, for different POs. Look at the secondary packaging guide, see exactly how Walmart outlines for you to build that out, and then you can get creative within their guidelines to make sure that you're being compliant, but also helping with that receivable process, especially when it's out of your control once it's out of DC. 
 

Last thing I'll mention on this slide is EDI. So just to call out Walmart has made some updates to their ASN documentation. You can check that out in retail link. We're also publishing an article on that here pretty soon. So be on the lookout for that. but that is going to probably be an issue that we'll see a couple of suppliers run into. 
 

I know the suppliers we've been talking to have had, A lot of ASN questions, so I would go and read that. It's in Supplier Academy. You can go find that documentation on some of the changes to ASNs. And then last here on prevention is just confirming that your items are set up correctly. This is, Feels like very table stakes. 
 

I, if you're a veteran supplier, you may say, my items are set up correctly, but go check them. start from the very beginning of the supply chain and kind of do a check through if you're seeing, chronic issues, especially on a particular item. All right, so we've got a little bit of time. 
 

We're going to talk about rebilling for overages. So here's how you could get repaid for overages, specifically those billable overages. You can pull documentation in Luminate, in Nova, for inventory received. You can determine which orders were received over, and you can also use like web EDI or whoever your EDI provider is, to rebuild Walmart. 
 

So that's going to be happening through EDI anyways, when you're rebilling. And then watch for repayments and. or deductions and APIS, and make sure you're disputing those accordingly. And then this is how you could pull that documentation. This is how you could pull, items versus, what's been ordered and then what's over. 
 

and you may need to hodgepodge that between Luminate, between Nova, between, maybe data from your carriers, etc. So that's And, example of what you could pull. And then this is how you would rebill Walmart. just making sure that you're using the correct, EDI type. and sending that through and then making sure you're watching for that repayment. 
 

All right, last thing. I know I've mentioned this a little bit, but here are just some of the call outs that we have learned when helping suppliers re bill for these deductions. Walmart does tend to pay new invoices in full. some will have deductions on them for the whole invoice. so you may need to dispute that, but essentially dispute any deduction, if you're seeing one come through, by providing proof that these items were shipped and received, and that there was an overage occurred, so you can actually attach that re billing information as well. All right, so we're wrapping up today's webinar. Thank you guys for joining. These are SupplierWiki's resources, so I mentioned a couple of these. 
 

They're probably in the chat. Go check out the page, look under our resources guide for some of our longer documentation, which you can see here. Or articles or other webinars as well. And let's get into questions. 
 

[00:42:46] Danielle: Yeah, and just to add on to those resources, this week we released a brand new cheat sheet on Walmart's departments, categories, and fine lines. 
 

Essentially, it is a resource that breaks down like the item hierarchy at Walmart, so we'll see some information on accounting departments, item subcategories, and fine lines. There's also item analysis with SupplierOne and Luminate in this resource. I know I have sent through a whole bunch of them, I'm just going to go ahead so if you're interested, you can download it.

All right, so moving on to Q& A. the first one that we have is from Veronica. Veronica asks, what is the best way to determine if there are matching shortages and overages for different DCs? Like in the example graphic you provided. I think this is referencing to slide 12,Allie. 
 

[00:43:43] Allie: Okay, perfect. I'll go to slide 12 just to make sure I'm understanding. 
 

Yeah, I, how I would start is if you can pull that Illuminator Nova, I would look into that. I would look into the reporting, but something that you can do is actually APDP does have some logic built in where it can say, okay, this is built on the same PO. so you can see them tied together. I would just also filter by specific PO numbers or like the invoice level number in, APDP, but I haven't spent enough time in Luminate since that is so new to give you like a beautiful report that you could build out, but that's something that we used to have more clarity in with DSS. So I don't have the best answer for you, but I would say those are the places I would start digging into. Sorry, I wish I had more of A beautiful solution just to hand over to you. 
 

[00:44:55] Danielle: Thank you, Allie. Next question that we have is from Tanya. If we use EDI to submit regular invoices, will Walmart accept overage invoices via Web EDI? 
 

[00:45:11] Allie: we use EDI to submit regular invoices. Will Walmart accept overage invoices via Web EDI? I'm trying to understand the difference between your questions. 
 

I'm gonna say yes. I would say however you're billing Walmart currently, as long as you're not like, doing it in an extremely manual way, which I know that sounds silly, but some suppliers have before. yeah, if you're using like true, like a different EDI provider, you can do it through that way. Thank you. 
 

I just saw that come through. So whatever EDI provider you're using, We just use WebDEDI as an example. You can do that through your regular process,  
 

[00:46:01] Danielle: Thank you. it looks like we don't, didn't have any further questions come in. I'll still just keep an eye on that. if you think of a question later or would like to share any insights, let us know. 
 

Please feel free to reach out to us on our email, or you can find us at supplypike. com. We would love to continue that conversation with you, but that is all we have for our content portion of today's webinar. We are going to switch it up and move on to our product preview, where we will be going through some of our overages solutions. 
 

So Allie is going to show you some really cool features and just give you a little insight into how we could potentially help you. 
 

[00:46:40] Allie: Yeah, thanks Danielle. And again, We want to be educational first. So if this is where you guys hop off, we totally understand. we're going to start just by talking about the over the dashboard here. 
 

and I'm gonna do this quickly to show you our overage feature. So this is not RetailLink. This is not Walmart. This is what SupplyPike has to offer. and we just wanted to show you guys a little bit of how we can make your life easier. So I won't spend too much time here because this is the dashboard, but it's really helpful metrics to see where your disputes are within, Walmart's system. 
 

What I'll say here is this is going to be pulling from APDP, but we, for AP deductions specifically, we have solutions for OTIF and SQEP. We don't have time today to get into them, unfortunately, but something that we can do is if you go to supplypike. com you can sign up for a free analysis where we pull your data into here, which this is pulling from several different places in RetailLink to give you the correct information, give you an accurate view without having to pull several spreadsheets of this, and it's updating every day, so you're having the most information. 
 

Fresh data put into a format that's easier to just read rather than building a spreadsheet for it. And you can see your deduction by status. You can see claim codes. So you can see these code 22, 25, 24, how many you have in process currently, able to dispute, and then the amount. We also have a new feature that is, being built out, still in beta. 
 

but it's got these different root causes, so you can see by deduction type, and it would actually take you into those codes. and see what's going on so then you can better understand what is actually happening. We have deductions over time so you can actually see what kind of those peak moments, where you're receiving a lot of deductions by dollar amount or count. 
  And then we've also got the claim items per number, per item number. So you can see if, let's say you had an item setup issue. Okay. Maybe that's happening here because I'm seeing this just on this one item. Why is this creating so many issues? You can also see it on DC type. So when we talked about receiving issues today, this may be a helpful way to dig in and say, okay, most of my receiving issues is coming from this DC. 
 

What's going on here? And now, how can I mitigate the issues with the receiving process? And then just another easy viewpoint is deciding how to dispute your deductions, is deciding, do I go for things over a thousand dollars? This is how much money it's costing me, I have this many under the a hundred dollar one. 
 

So those are really adding up as well. So again, this is helpful for you. No matter who you are on your team, whatever level you are, just understanding what's going on. And then this is really more of the actionable side of your deductions, so you can go in, filter for these different statuses. 
 

and this is pulling, like I said, from APDP, from RetailLink. So this is the information you can go in, view, see what's going on. It's pulling in all the information you need. And there's actually business logic that's pulling in Your proof documentation, so you don't have to, and logic that's saying, this is ready to dispute. 
 

So as a supplier, you could just go ahead and click yes, and it would be done. We also have automation to where you don't have to do this. You can set it and forget it. I'm not going to get into that today because we cover that, in a demo, if you want that, or in other webinars at the end, I'm actually going to talk about overages because We do have a solution for this. this is specifically for billable overages. Overage fines are going to be handled on some of these other platforms that we've got within the Walmart platform. But essentially, this is gathering all the information. And again, this is a demo account. there's not Luckily, our demo account doesn't have any billable overages, which is great. 
 

but this gathers all of your billable overages, identifies them, aggregates them, and then you can basically click, yep, I want to download these overages, I want to download the payment report, and then All you have to do is submit them through your EDI to then bill those. So it can, it is cutting out a significant amount of time to go track these down, build out other reports to then, identify those overages that are, in the billable category and being able to, request payment for that. 
 

So this is a newer feature. So if you're a customer, you may not have seen this yet, but if you're new to SupplyPike, there's a whole bunch more I can get into. You can see our other retailers that we're in, but really I'm going to end there today. and thank you guys for joining today's webinar. 
  We really appreciate it. the engagement and just getting to learn from you as well. So thank you guys so much and we hope to see you in another webinar.