How to Dispute Shortages at Walmart 

 

[00:00:00] Allie: Stacy's gonna be leading us through the content. If you've joined our webinars in the past, you know Stacy as an OG webinar host. She is a deduction expert, and has worked in the supplier world as well. And then myself, I'll be looking at any of your questions and sending some resources in the chat. 
 

I'm on the SupplierWiki team and my name's Ally Trong. So like the webinar that you're on today or any articles or gated content, that's what my team works on. And we just help suppliers, understand some of the things that are going on. 
 

And just to add on to that, our mission is to create free educational content for suppliers. I'll send some in the chat, but if you're not familiar with the eBooks that we create, the articles that we publish, they're really for you. and if there's something that we can't create, please let us know either in the webinar or we'll put our emails up here at the end. 
 

we want to make sure that we're providing the best resources for you and your team. All right, we have a packed agenda today. We're focusing a lot on shortages and we're bucketing it into smaller sections. So first we'll just define what a shortage is. Then we're going to talk about how you avoid those shortages. 
 

So the prevention side. And then we're going to get into if you do end up getting a shortage, which, 99 percent of suppliers do. Then we'll talk about how you actually dispute those and win them back. Then we're going to do a deep dive into shortages at Walmart. So we'll be talking about some of the specifics to fighting deductions, and shortages at Walmart. 
 

Then we're going to have some time for questions here at the end. And then if you stick around, we'll have a SupplyPike sneak peek on how we help automate deductions at Walmart, so you don't have to dispute them Alright, here are a couple FAQs. The first one that we usually get is, will you get a copy of today's slide deck? 
 

Yes, we're always going to send you guys a slide deck copy, the PDF version of that, as well as a recording of today's session in your inbox in three to four business days. So be looking out for that. And then the second question that we get often is, what is the best way to ask a question? first off, the best way to ask a question is to just ask it. 
 

We love to answer y'all's questions. but please put those in the Q& A tab. That's the little speech bubble with a question mark at the bottom. That's where I'll be able to see them and tee them up easily for Stacey. And if it's pertinent to the content she's talking about, I may interject and we'll talk about that question, but most likely I'll save most of them for the end.

And then please use the chat to just share about your favorite. Summer song that you're listening to, or your experience as a supplier disputing at Walmart. We want to make sure we're facilitating a learning community. So share your thoughts. And other than that, if you're unfamiliar of who we are, we're a part of SupplyPike. 
 

We are a company that helps suppliers get paid and get better through software that we've created that helps identify, provide visibility, recover, and prevent deductions and compliance issues. We do that at a couple different retailers. today we're talking about Walmart, but we have solutions at Target, Amazon, Kroger, Home Depot, and we just launched CVS. 
 

And then we're continuing to see if there's other retailers. So let us know if you have one that you'd love to see a solution for. And we do that with, lots of different retailers. You can see some of the logos in the background here. This is just a small sample of some of the suppliers Flyers that we have helped recover, lost dollars due to deductions. 
 

So if that's interesting to you, stick around at the end, we are gonna be going through the solution that helps empower these suppliers to win that money back. And with that, I'll hand it over to Stacy to get into today's content. 
 

[00:03:47] Stacy: Awesome. Thank you so much, Allie. Super excited to get started. as we joked a little bit, earlier in the call, we know shortages aren't always. 
 

The most fun thing to talk about, but like Ali mentioned, it is a very, common reality for suppliers at pretty much every retailer, you know, that we've ever talked to. like Ali mentioned, 99 percent of suppliers are getting shortages. And so we thought it'd be a really, important topic for us to cover and help you guys understand what they are, how you get them, why you get them, and how you can try to prevent them. 
 

And for the ones that can't be prevented, what you can do to. I'm going to kick us off by talking about what shortages actually are. you know, this is, I would say, if you guys are newer to Walmart or newer to shipping to Walmart, really important to understand. a shortage deduction is basically a scenario in which the retailer will withhold payment from an invoice. 
 

essentially, you know, Walmart orders 100 cases, you ship them 100 cases, you invoice them for 100 cases, and they short pay you because they are saying that they did not receive some or all of the goods that you have invoiced them for. So in that scenario, Walmart may come back and say, Hey, actually, we only received 80 cases instead of 100 cases, so I'm not going to pay you for the full 100 cases because I didn't receive it all, allegedly, and I'm only going to pay you for the 80, so you would get a shortage for those 20 cases. 
 

so again, if you guys are newer to shipping to Walmart or maybe you guys are just not, this isn't really a world that you look at, I would really encourage you all to start shipping. So I'm going to start, you know, understanding your invoices and figuring out how and when you're getting shortages and I'll deep dive into what that looks like in a second. 
 

So as I, you know, mentioned kind of an example of a shortage. So let's say you've gotten an order from Walmart, and you had to ship orange juice and pomegranate juice and grapefruit juice. But again, you know, you invoice them for all three types of juices. But Walmart is saying, Hey, I did not receive the grapefruit juice and the pomegranate juice. 
 

I'm going to issue a code 24, which is an example of a shortage deduction, and not pay this 1, 200 because again, quote unquote, we did not receive it, at Walmart. So there are lots of different causes for shortage deductions, and I'll go over them at a high level right now, and then we'll double click into them in further sections in the webinar. 
 

But really common reasons for why we see shortage deductions happen, an easy example to point to is poor labeling. So let's just say, for example, you really did ship three different types of juices. For some reason, you accidentally labeled all of them as orange juice. Walmart might say, hey, I actually got nine cases of orange juice, but I still got a shortage for the grapefruit and pomegranate juice. 
 

poor labeling or even in transit, labels get torn off of boxes or something like that. then Walmart's hey, I don't know what to scan this in as, so I'm just going to take the product. but because they are not scanning it to tie it back to a P. O. or an invoice, it looks like. The shortage. 
 

So for labeling, very common reason that we see, receiving errors are oftentimes out of a supplier's control. And that is also very common. as you guys, I'm sure can imagine Walmart distribution centers or DCs are literally processing hundreds of thousands of cases a day. and so very, common for, And then there's a lot of other things that can be used for, you know, someone is unloading a truck and they see a pallet or they see a wall of cases. 
 

And they'll, you know, scan one of the labels, you know, count and go, okay, that looks like 10 and say, Hey, they received 10, but actually it's 11 or 12 or whatever it is. And that can lead to a shortage. Mismatched pack types is a little bit less common, but something we tend to see for newer suppliers that maybe aren't familiar with the item setup process at Walmart, or maybe if you are a veteran supplier, but hey, you're changing the item configuration for a specific product that you're shipping. 
 

So very commonly we'll see, you know, and I'll again, double click into this in a little bit, but your inner pack. and your, outer pack, your vendor pack, you know, hey, it should be a 12 over 12, but you've accidentally set it up as a 12 over 6. So Walmart is expecting a certain amount, you are invoicing for a certain amount, and that number just isn't tying out, and that can lead to shortages. 
 

and another surprisingly common one that we see is, an invoice that arrives before the shipment MABD. you know, if you guys are shipping to Walmart, all of you should be familiar with the concept of the must arrive by date. So anytime Walmart is cutting a PO to you guys or saying, hey, we expect you to get this case here by next week. 
 

Thursday, for example. so if you are, let's say, sending an invoice over before Thursday or on Thursday, and let's say the product gets in on Friday because you're collect and, you know, you're at the mercy of Walmart's fleet, you know, what happens in those scenarios is Walmart MAPD and go, Oh, you've invoiced me for these 10 cases. 
 

you know, I haven't received anything, quote unquote, because it's, you know, going to get there on Friday. You know, I haven't received anything. I'm not going to pay this. I'm going to deduct the whole invoice. so these are just common scenarios that can happen. and again, we'll get into each of these and how you can avoid them, as you're thinking through the different types of shortage deductions that you may be receiving at your company. 
 

so one thing that I wanted to call out and we think it's really important to share with you guys is the impact of shortages. I think a lot of times, you know, very commonly we will see suppliers are pretty siloed where finances finance things and sales things and supply chain to supply chain things. 
 

And a lot of times you miss this ripple effect that can happen from just one shortage. you know, we always like to. Illustrate that, you know, one one mistake either on your part or the retailer's part can have a lot of implications down the line. So it's very common for us to see, for example, hey, you get a code 24, again, a shortage deduction. 
 

Whether valid or invalid, meaning whether it's your fault or the retailer's fault. And a lot of times that can then turn into a PO defect. So Walmart has introduced, the SQEP program, the Supplier Quality Excellence Program. it's a newer compliance program. It's been around for about a year and a half now. 
 

At this point, we have a lot of different, webinars and articles and eBooks about it. So it won't go too far into that, but you could get a PO defect Fine, because Walmart is saying, Oh, you didn't transmit the correct ASN or the PO was not correct because we got this shortage. So you can get a fine from that. 
 

And then even further down the line, because Walmart is receiving it incorrectly, you can also get an OTIF fine on the infill side. So Walmart, again, example saying, I ordered 100, I only got 80. I'm going to hit you with an in full fine because you're not hitting that 95 percent in full threshold. So a lot of kind of downstream effects that can happen when, you know, if and when a supplier is encountering shortage issues. 
 

So it's always really important to try and get you get it right or as right as you can on the front end so that you're not dealing with these things in the back end. And I think one thing that's interesting too, that again, a lot of teams just aren't aware, is at Walmart, each of these issues is handled by a different team completely. 
 

So a lot of times we will see folks go, Oh, as long as I'm able to reverse the deduction, they should automatically reverse a PO defect fine or an OTIF fine, so I'm good there. Okay. But actually, that's not true, because these are managed by three different teams across three different systems. even if you get a code 24, reversed, you still have to fight an SQEP fine or an OTIF fine and things like that. 
 

as you can imagine, the complexity compounds very quickly. so again, you'll see a broken record here, but everything you can do to try and minimize it from happening in the first place. SQEP in the first place, we'll save you and your team a lot of heartache and time sink, sunk, down the road. 
 

so yeah, I wanted to call out for you guys just the different types of common shortages at Walmart. as Allie mentioned, top of, at the top of the call, we work with over 500 suppliers today, so we have some pretty interesting benchmarking information. for what we see when we're looking at like The dollar, proportion for our supplier base. 
 

you will find that code 25s really tend to rise to the top for us. So across the book of business that we manage, which again is you know, over 50 billion, goods built, not shipped, which 22 makes up. Close to 60%, and then 24s and 25s make up about 13 percent each. And I'm going to go into, the nuances between these three codes. 
 

So the only thing I wanted to call out here is if you guys are getting a lot of codes 22, 24, and 25, just know that you're not alone. Very common. We see this all the time. Okay, so let's Switch gears and talk about how you can actually avoid shortages and we're gonna again just we have an hour with you guys you know, there's a million billion root causes out there. 
 

We're gonna focus on the main ones that we see Just standard shortages and how you can wrap your heads around them and start to think about working with your teams to avoid them So I think one thing that a lot of people take for granted is the item setup process I get it, I was on the supplier side for a long time, I know it's not the fun part, no one wants to do it, it's awful to maintain, so a lot of times what happens is you get a spreadsheet that your factory fills out and you're like, I'll just throw that on item 360 and it's fine, but item setup can again lead to a lot of these waterfall effects if you're not making sure that you're accurate from day one. 
 

So a couple of pro tips for you guys. Wherever possible, try to submit only one invoice per P. O. We work with some suppliers who will actually ship one P. O. out on multiple truckloads. Now, obviously, if you have full truckloads, that's a sort of different scenario, but they'll be like, Oh, Walmart ordered 100 cases. 
 

I only have 50 available today and 50 available tomorrow. I'll ship 50 on one today and 50 on one tomorrow. that can make it very difficult for Walmart to do that. you know, if you're doing two different trucks, two different invoices, for example, what often happens is Walmart will basically, you know, they'll receive against the PO that first truck load or that first load and they'll close the PO out and they'll go, Oh, I ordered 150 came in this truck. 
 

Cool, let's close that out for 50. And mark as a shortage for 50. It's very, not to say uncommon, but you would have to basically work with your Walmart team if you wanted them to reopen a P. O. and receive more product on a separate load. And at that point you are in. at the mercy of Walmart, which if you guys have done this for a while, you know, is, can be hard. 
 

so wherever you can try and again, obviously wherever it makes sense, there's a business need, try and send on one load and try and submit one invoice per PO. You will save yourself a lot of heartache down the road. if you can try not to break up shipments. I mentioned earlier making sure you're confirming your item setups. 
 

So your vendor pack quantities, your warehouse pack quantities, and I'll have a little guide in, in the next slide to show you guys what that looks like. But again, an easy example of that is, you know, you set up your item as a 12 over 1, so a vendor pack of 12 and a warehouse pack of 1, which is individual units. 
 

But Walmart, you know, maybe that's how you have it set up internally, but Walmart has it set up as a 12 over 2, so they expect to get 6 interpacks or something. So when you're invoicing them, you know, hey, again, the numbers aren't tying out. So they're going to go, oh, it's a shortage, you know, we expected to get 12, we only got 6. 
 

We're going to short you for that. So making sure that whatever you have in your internal system and what you're invoicing for and what Walmart has in item 360, again, they need to tie out correctly. Transmitting invoices with retailers item numbers, again, wherever you can and whenever it makes sense, it just makes it a lot easier for them to, again, tie that out and track that back. 
 

We've worked with suppliers who will have the nine digit Walmart item number set up in item 360, but then invoice on their vendor stock number. And then for Walmart, they'll go, I don't know what this is. I didn't receive that product. I'm not going to pay you for that. So I know it's annoying sometimes having to, you know, basically try and match whatever the retailer has in their system. 
 

But again, rather have a little bit more hardship in the beginning for you guys and make sure that you're paid in full and it will save you a lot of heartache down the road. And then lastly, duh, but always like to call it out. Make sure that you're matching your invoice to the PO and don't make adjustments on POs that don't, that aren't on your invoice that don't match the PO. 
 

So again, this is how Walmart ties those numbers out to release the payment. you know, if the PO said a hundred, don't invoice them for 110, which again, duh, but just making sure that we're sharing that with you guys. other things to think about around packaging and labeling. You'll see we put this in bold. 
 

Avoid masterpacks. truly, if you really, can. There's almost no reason you should be sending a masterpack to Walmart. And a masterpack is basically when you have different vendor packs. you know, in one, or different warehouse packs in one package. MasterPack. So you may have again, an orange juice and pomegranate juice example. 
 

You should not be putting your orange and pomegranate juice in one big box and closing that and sending that to Walmart, because they're not going to open that up. So they're going to, again, scan whatever is on that. MasterPack and go, Oh, we got one. And that's all you're going to get credit for. So if you're shipping, you know, orange juice, make sure that's one thing. 
 

If you're shipping pomegranate juice, make sure that's one thing. And of course, again, following your vendor pack and warehouse pack quantity setups there. Other pro tips is utilize slip sheets between POs if you're palletizing freight. This is just, again, a pro tip for you guys. You don't have to do it, but it just makes it a lot easier for Walmart again to go, okay, now I understand this is for one PO and this is for another. 
 

Just again, makes it a little bit easier for them to receive freight on their side. Identify the PO number and facility number on labels. Walmart has a lot of good information on their supplier secondary. packaging standards guidelines. I think we've got some material on that as well that Allie can probably share. 
 

It's like a 200 page document, but I would really recommend going through it, especially if you're newer to Walmart and figuring out how to set up your labels and things like that. obviously making sure labels are clearly applied, not damaged or obfuscated, just so you guys know too, with the new SQEP requirements that we talked about, Walmart is requiring labels on both sides of cases, so that is new ish, again, it's been about a year and a half, but even if, let's say, you have it on one side, it gets accepted correctly at the DC, you can still get hit with an SQEP fine because you don't have labels on both sides of the boxes. 
 

So just something for you to think about there if you guys aren't set up to do that already. you're probably already getting SQEP fines, so definitely be just aware of that and working with your factories. and your warehouses to make sure that you are doing that today. these are a little bit more you know, pro tippy if it makes sense for your business, but utilizing color coding or imagery to differentiate between products and orders. 
 

So this sounds again, I think it's a little bit, quote unquote, silly, but we've actually seen it pay dividends for the suppliers that we work with. you know, I keep going back to that example, but it's easy, like the orange and the pomegranate example. you know, if all you're doing is printing, you know, in black ink, like the item name, the UPC number, whatever it is, and one says orange juice and one says pomegranate juice, just imagine, again, some guy at 3 a.m. unloading a trailer. He's not. probably going to take the time to read, you know, and go oh, that says orange and that says pomegranate. He's just going to go, okay, it looks the same. They're all about the same size. The, you know, font looks the same. Color looks the same. Like they're probably the same. 
 

and so we've seen folks literally something as simple as going like orange sticker, pink sticker, and visually that's enough for the receiving team at the DCs to go, Okay, five orange stickers, five pink stickers. Understand two different products. so if you guys are having issues where you're seeing like shortages on one item and overages on another, usually that's because they're not able to differentiate during receiving. 
 

So that's something to think about if you guys are dealing with those sorts of challenges. wanted to share with you guys again, just a quick refresher. the SKU stock keeping unit is, you know, one, it's basically the individual selling unit. Then you're going to have the warehouse pack, and then the vendor pack. 
 

And this is going to come from you to the DC, which then they can break out of the warehouse packs. So you could have a break pack or you could have just one case pack. either is okay, but again, just making sure that you have it set up to match. What Walmart has. So again, if you have 12 over one or 12 over four, that Walmart is going to expect a different amount of things there. 
 

so just be aware of that. So just easy example. So if you had set it up as 12 over one on your side, you may expect Walmart to pay you for. but let's say it's set up as a 12 over four on Walmart side, Walmart will expect, oh, there's four units in there. So they will not pay you on eight units because again, the item setup isn't working correctly. 
 

So just be aware of how Walmart does that. so then other things to think about with. Palettes is, you know, consider how your product needs to be packaged, how many of your products can fit on a palette, how your palette will be parceled out from warehouse to DC to store to customer, and then how Walmart's initiatives in packaging, tech, and manufacturing can affect your business. 
 

This in particular, again, is referring to the SQEP program. So Walmart, for example, now has expectations around palette quantity or palette quality and load quality. so you basically, Now, if you're shipping products on broken pallets or not on a CHEP pallet, for example, you can get fined for that. again, definitely be aware, you know, they again not only cause shortage issues, but fines in other compliance areas as well. 
 

Okay, I know I just spent a long time talking about Gloom and Doom, about how You can get shortages and hopefully how you guys are, you know, able to, avoid some of them. I think it's really important to, to talk through how you can actually dispute the shortages. you know, again, Allie mentioned earlier on the call that, hey, 99 percent of suppliers get shortages. 
 

That is true. a lot of times, again, you know, sometimes it's going to be valid. You really did short ship the product. Walmart ordered a hundred. You really did ship 80. Then, hey, if you got a shortage, That's valid, and you then should probably be talking with your forecast and sales team to understand how you can adjust the POs. 
 

but a lot of times, you know, you're going to get invalid shortages. We see it as often as, anytime you get a shortage, 70 to 80 percent of the time it's going to be invalid. Meaning, you really, ship the hundred cases and Walmart really did receive it incorrectly. you know, there is actually a path, a formal path, that Walmart provides to disputing those shortages. 
 

So you can actually go to Walmart and plead your case and say, hey, I actually did ship those 100 cases and here's the proof that I have. and then you can get those paid back. So on invalid shortages, we see oftentimes when win rates of over 90 percent because Walmart is okay, yeah, you're right. 
 

You actually did ship those. We should pay you in full for those. and then you will get the money back for that. want to talk through again what that process looks like and how you can set yourself up for success, to actually win those invalid shortages back. step one is always, you know, as the Boy Scouts say, be prepared. 
 

be prepared for invalid shortages. They're going to happen. That's just a fact. How that's just the fact of the matter. so what we would recommend is make sure that you are generating and storing packing lists that match your ASN and invoice. I wanted to call it the ASN piece because this is also a part of the SQEP program. 
 

again, I like to make sure you guys know because it's newer. So again, if you're new to Walmart, you may not know. Be aware. But you can actually get fined if you are not sending ASNs. ASNs are not generally considered like the silver bullet because basically it's what you're saying you shipped. 
 

But it never hurts to have that available. And again, you have to transmit them with every shipment at Walmart now or you can be liable for a fine. So just be aware of that. If you are a collect supplier, so collect supplier means that the Walmart Fleet is backing up to your warehouse and picking up goods at your warehouse and then taking it to their DCs. 
 

Always require the carriers to sign the bill of lading and then store these documents. If you can store them digitally, it just again makes your life easier. Very, I would say not very common, but we do see suppliers that will. BOLs in like a filing cabinet somewhere, which is great, because at least you have them, but obviously, as you can imagine, anytime you're having to go fight a shortage, now you're like combing through a filing cabinet. 
 

So if there's a way for you to store it digitally, again, just Save yourself some time and heartache, and try and store it that way. But you want to make sure that your carriers are signing for that BOL. Again, I'll get into this a little bit more, but if you're a collect supplier, the BOL is going to be your primary proof document to fight and win back invalid shortages. 
 

If you are a prepaid supplier, so that means you are responsible for getting the product to the Walmart DCs, then you need to make sure that you have some way of getting the PODs from the carriers or the 3PLs, because this is going to be your proof to fight, because as you can imagine, you're responsible for getting the product to those distribution centers so that proof of delivery is going to be what you need to fight and, you know, again, show Walmart, hey, we shipped in full. 
 

Why we called it out to, you know, try and collect these PODs ahead of time is because this is actually common. We see a lot of times carriers or 3PLs do not store those files in perpetuity. a very common example, UPS, If you go to FedEx, they will actually purge their documents after 90 days. So a lot of times, again, folks don't know this, they'll go Oh, cool, I ship small parcel with FedEx, no problem. 
 

When I need it, I'll just log in and utilize that. Without realizing after 90 days, they purge the documents from the portal. Now For certain carriers, you can still get the documents, but then you have to email your account manager, and then say, hey, I actually need a document for XYZPO. Which again, as you can imagine, just more time sink for you guys to have to go, oh, we got a shortage for this PO. 
 

Who is the carrier? What was the, you know, what was the load number? And now I've got to go send an email to somebody and hope they have it logged somewhere in their storage files. so wherever you can just know if you can access these documents, you are going to be miles ahead to, to get ahead of any invalid shortages there. 
 

you need to make sure that all of the shipping documents that you have, so be it BOLs or PODs, have again, the relevant information that allows you to, again, tie back and fight the invalid shortages you're getting. so PO number, a ship to address, item shipment info, and signatures are very common that you want to see. 
 

Just so you guys know, the shortages are basically, you're going to get them on an invoice, and usually you're tying an invoice to a PO. So for every invoice you send to Walmart, you can get a deduction on that invoice. So again, you want to make sure that you are being very clear with those invoices and shipping documents, that it has all the relevant information so that you can, again, match it correctly and go. 
 

PA 12345. Here's the invoice. Here's the BOL for that. Everything shows we shipped all 100 cases. Pay us back, please, Walmart. another pro tip, if you are a collect supplier, you're We tend to recommend avoiding SLC whenever possible. So SLC stands for Shipper Load and Count. And basically it's the concept of, let's say, you know, Walmart fleet backs up to your warehouse, your driver, or sorry, someone at your facility is going to say, yes, I loaded the hundred cases and sign that off. 
 

as you can imagine for, you know, if you're Walmart. Obviously you, the, supplier is going to say you shipped it in full, right? So for them, they actually, it makes it a lot more difficult to fight shortages if you're SLC because Walmart basically says your proof is you saying you shipped in full, which of course you're going to say, it's like, why should I accept that? 
 

So when you are SLC, you have to use other types of proofs. Like sometimes you have to pull. reporting out of RetailLink to show Walmart what was received against that PO so that you can fight it that way. But again, I know broken record, wherever you can, try and minimize the heartache for yourself. 
 

So if you can, I would try and switch from SLC to, you know, again allowing their, SLC is a great way for your fleet and their drivers to actually sign the product and confirm that everything was loaded in full. Because if you have a carrier signed to POL, you're going to have a much better shot of winning that invalid shortage. 
 

So I just wanted to call that out there. We don't see SLC very often. I know a lot of folks just use it. Just do it because it's easier, it's faster, to go, oh yeah, I ordered 100, I know I'm putting 100 on the truck, easier for me to sign it, but again, think through the downstream effects of that, of when you get a shortage, it becomes very, win rates drop from that 80 90 percent range. 
 

to 30 to 40 percent when you're SLC, if you're getting shortages. So just wanted to call that out for you guys there. so yeah. So what do you actually need to dispute a shortage deduction? Hey, you're checking your invoices. You're checking your payments. You go, wait, hold on. I didn't get paid in full for this. 
 

What do I actually need to do to fight it? for Walmart and honestly pretty much every retailer, the supplier is guilty until proven innocent. So they're going to deduct it. They're just going to take the money first. It is on you to prove your case and say, Walmart, actually, you should pay me in full. 
 

So the burden of proof actually lies on you. So in general, you will need the basic information about the claim, invoice, and shipment, as well as the proof documentation that supports your dispute, as I mentioned. you know, we've talked about this earlier, so I'm belabor the point, but basically the shipping document is utilized to show that the items on the invoice were picked up and or delivered in full. 
 

So shipping documents are actually legal documents, like a bill of lading and a proof of delivery are legal documents that show chain of custody for an item. And that's why Walmart utilizes it as, again, that silver bullet to decide if they're going to allow you to win back that shortage deduction or not. 
 

so again, if you're collect, buy. really try to get the carrier to sign the bill of lading. And if you're prepaid, your carrier should be, should have a proof of delivery of some sort. Just make sure that, again, you have an easy way to access that. so you're not having to dig through it and, you know, spend weeks and weeks trying to find a document rather than being able to just dispute it once the deduction comes in. 
 

won't spend too long here. This is just an example of the bill of lading. you guys should probably be pretty familiar with this if you're a collect supplier. So it's obviously going to have your destination, your order number, all of the item information, as well as the carrier signature. you will also, on the POD, very common to see the OSND stamp, so overages, shortages, and damaged. 
 

and usually it's going to have some sort of number, and then And you'll probably also have oh, received in full. you know, or so here, this example, freight bill received in full. If you see an X here, that means you shouldn't see any overshortage and damages, basically Walmart is saying, yes, we received all the product as expected. 
 

and usually you're going to get some sort of signature here. So if you're using PODs to fight shortages, you have to have this OSND stamp, because again, the POD doesn't really mean anything. It's just a document until. Walmart confirms that, hey, we received all of this product in full. this is an example of a gate or drop trailer stamp. 
 

So usually this is a sticker placed on the BOL by the retailer and signed by the driver. now one thing to note here is all this is showing is that the shipment arrived at a retailer DC. so just give you guys some context for some products, some DCs, you know, basically they, they utilize drop trailer and. 
 

What that means is the Walmart fleet will go to the DCs, they'll literally drop their trailer in the yard and get some sort of stamp for that. And then they're off to do the next thing. And then you won't get some sort of POD until it actually gets scanned into the actual facility. So the drop trailer stamp is still important, still doesn't hurt. 
 

but one thing. You know, I like to call out is that all it does is that it proves that the shipment arrived at the DC, that it got dropped there, but it does not prove quantity received. So you can see here there's no, oh, this is 46 cases or anything like that. It's not going to show that. It's just showing, yes, we, we received a trailer, at the DC. 
 

and the burden of proof is actually on the retailer if the dispute is denied. you know, You can actually utilize this as proof to go against any shortages there. Okay, so I'm gonna shift gears again to deep diving into shortages at Walmart in particular, just to give you guys again some common codes that we see and the nuances between each code, because it's very, if you guys want to see what sort of deductions you're receiving, you can go into an app called APIS or the Accounts Manager. 
 

PayableInquirySystem, and you'll be able to actually look at your invoices, and your checks, and your deductions there. we don't get into it in this particular webinar, and again, I'm sure Allie can share. We have a lot of webinars about, the actual step by step process to identify deductions and then dispute those deductions, but I'll give you guys at a high level, which apps you want to be looking at. 
 

APIS. This is going to be your step one to understand, again, what you're invoicing, what you're receiving payments on, what you're receiving deductions on. In APIS, all they will do is give you a code. So they'll just say it's a code 22 and a minus 300 or whatever it is. they don't explain what any of those codes are. 
 

We actually have a knowledge base on SupplierWiki, which is the kind of platform where we're giving the webinar, which will give you a definition of all the codes that exist. with Walmart, as well as the other retailers that we support, but just so you know what to expect when you get there. And, after you get to APIS and you're like, hey, cool or not cool, I got this 300 deduction, you will go into another application. 
 

If you, and if you'd then determine you do your own research and you go, hey, Actually, I should not have received this deduction. We know we shipped this PO in full. We haven't canceled anything. Then you would then go to another application, of course, in RetailLink called APDP, or the Accounts Payable Dispute Portal, and that is where you would start the dispute. 
 

process, and that's where you fill in all of the information, have all of your proof documents, so on and so forth, so you could actually get that money back. So again, wax poetic there, I think Allie's already shared, some future webinars that are coming up, which is awesome, as well as the different codes that exist, and Allie called out 70 different codes at Walmart.

Yeah, so you have to know what each of them mean, why you got them, how to fight them, because all of them require different proof documentation. so I would recommend, again, if you are newer to Walmart or if you don't have this resource already, really go and download that, SupplierWiki, Deduction Codes Explained Guide. 
 

It's amazing. A lot of folks we work with will actually like print a copy out and put it on their desk as reference. So hopefully helpful for you guys. But yeah, wanted to give you all again the nuances between the three main shortage codes that we talked about. So when you get into APIS and you're like, Code 22, what does that mean? 
 

You understand, okay, this is why I got it, and this is what I need to do about it. for Code 22, this is, labeled as a goods billed, not shipped. And essentially what this is referring to is when your invoice does not match the quantity that the facility says it received. let's just say, again, we're going to go back to our, orange juice and pomegranate example. 
 

If you are invoicing Walmart, for these six cases, and Walmart is saying, hey, I only received these three cases. Essentially, Walmart is going to say the invoice does not match what we received, so we're going to short you on that, and that will be a code 22. another example, and this is very, rare, but just again to help maybe solidify the example, is let's say you shipped six, they received six, but you invoiced for seven, you'll get a shortage on that one, because again, that invoice is not matching the quantity that has been received. 
 

So you could still have received in full against the PO, but if the invoice is more than that, then you will get a code 22 shortage because again, those numbers don't tie out. So just wanted to give you another example there. as I mentioned, the BOL in that example could be stamped as received in full at the facility, but again, the nuance here is the invoice was transmitted for quantities greater than what the facility claimed to receive. 
 

disputing is essentially trying to show that the invoice quantity matches the received quantity. typically, again, the most common scenario we're going to see here is what we talked about where Walmart ordered six, you invoiced for six. Walmart is saying, I only received three. So the invoice doesn't match the receipt. 
 

So we're going to hit you with a code 22. A code 24 is if the carton, if there's a carton shortage or the freight bill was actually signed short. So again, like I mentioned, the BOL is stamped as received in full in code 22s, but again, the invoices is larger than what the receipt is. For Code 24, Walmart is actually signing the BOL as short against the quantities the shipment was set to contain. 
 

So let's say you're a collect supplier, Walmart ordered nine, and then when the carrier came and they're checking against, Hey, you loaded, what did you load into my truck? The carrier themselves are saying, oh, it was short, we only received, or we only loaded three on the truck instead of the nine that was ordered. 
 

So I think, you know, if you guys think back to the original, you know, slide a couple of slides ago where we talked about the 22s, 24s, and 25s. 22s make up, again, that 60 percent because it's very common. 24s are a little bit less common because generally speaking, suppliers are not actually shorting, Often, so when you do actually short, then you would get a code 24 there. 
 

and it's basically when the shipper invoices for more than what the facility claims to have received and or what the shipment was said to contain. So disputing involves proving that the invoice quantity matches the received quantity. So the way you would tackle a 22 and 24 are the same. it's just, again, very slight nuance. 
 

Most of the times. The suppliers we work with aren't really going to dig into a 22 versus a 24, unless we see code 24 as being like a very high proportion of codes, because at that point we would want to start to dig in with you guys and go hey, this isn't common for what we see across the industry. 
 

What might you guys be doing a little bit differently there? So you would fight it the same way, APDP, same proof documentation, bill of lading, proof of delivery, to get this money back. a Code 25, again, very slight nuance between all these codes, but a Code 25 is basically saying there is no merchandise received for the invoice. 
 

again, Walmart is saying they did not receive any merchandise at 22 and 24. You guys can see here, hey, I received, Some merchandise. A Code 25 is saying I received no merchandise. so you will always see a Code 25 deduction in the full amount of the invoice. So again, Walmart ordered three cases, you invoice for three cases. 
 

Walmart is saying they received zero cases. You'll get a full, a Code 25 for the full amount of the invoice. And disputing essentially is proving that items were even received at all for the invoice in question. so one thing that I wanted to point out here for code 25s, often what we see, again talking mostly on the invalid side, obviously if it's valid that means you guys are having some issues with shipping and that's more of a, hey we need to fix an internal process. 
 

If you're getting an invalid code 25, interestingly enough, oftentimes what we see is that it's more around a timing issue. So the invoice is sent to Walmart. before the order is shipped or arrives at the Walmart facility. Now, I know this sounds a little bit counterintuitive because in a lot of Walmart documentation, they actually recommend that you send your invoice the same day that you are shipping the product, but it's what I mentioned earlier on in the call. 
 

Essentially, what's happening is Walmart will get that invoice. They'll compare it against the MABD and go, okay, so let's say again, you gave me invoice on Monday. The MABD was Wednesday. They'll look at Wednesday and go, Oh, we didn't receive anything. you know, we're going to go ahead and short this. So what we recommend is to schedule the invoice to be sent on the MABD itself, because most of the time your product should be getting there on the MABD. 
 

If you, if it makes sense, and this is something where I would then recommend taking a look at your like OTIF data and understanding like if there are, like if you guys are a little bit late on when product arrives at the DC. So first things first, I get to the root of the problem and I would, you know, do understand your lead time. 
 

So you can do a lead time audit, to actually make sure that your lead times are accurate between when, you know, you ship a PO and when it should be. When the MABD should be scheduled out, but let's just say, you know, that's a work in progress. if you notice that you guys are consistently, again, product arrive late, oftentimes it's going to happen more on the collect side. 
 

You can even build in an extra couple of days to send your invoices. you know, one, two, three days. We actually have some companies that will send it seven days after the MABD, just to really, make sure that Walmart has received it. And again, we'll pay you for that. Now, obviously I know it's easy for me to say that Hey, just delay the invoice. 
 

I completely understand that there is a cashflow aspect to it. so not every supplier, it doesn't make sense for every supplier to do that. but. If, again, if you can, if it makes sense, you know, what I like to recommend to my folks is, hey, I would rather you have a, you know, three day delay in sending that invoice out and getting paid rather than getting a code 25. 
 

and just so you guys have some context, when you fight a deduction with Walmart, their average payback time, so like review and payback is 45 to 60 days. So it's hey, would you rather lose three days on the front end or get the code 25 and then have to wait 60 days after you've fought it to get paid back? 
 

So again, it really, I would say, you know, comes down to understanding your business. If you guys are getting hit with rampant code 25s, then that's a really big deal. That's a really easy indication to you to go, Hey, what are we doing on invoice timing here? And maybe we really should build in those three to seven extra days. 
 

But let's just say you look at your book of business and you go, Hey, you know what? We get like one code 25 a year. Like I, you know, we're going to live with that. It's going to be fine. Then you don't need to go in and change any processes. One thing we preach a lot here at SupplyPike, obviously, it's so important to understand the tactical side of the business and how you get your shortages, how you fight your shortages, but it's always really important to zoom out a little bit and understand what are the, what sorts of disputes, or sorry, And then, what deductions are you getting? 
 

so that you can understand hey, what do I really need to spend time on and prioritize? okay. So the last thing I would say there is, you know, do not re invoice once goods are delivered, because this can cause Code 30s. So one of those 70 codes that we talked about. and Instead, dispute the existing Code 25 deduction. 
 

So if you get a Code 25 deduction, where again, you get nothing, like Walmart saying they receive nothing, don't re invoice for that because the Code 30 is a duplicate invoice deduction. Instead, again, you would dispute the existing Code 25 deduction in APDP. Okay, cool. I feel like I have talked a lot at you guys, so I'm sorry, but hopefully all helpful information. 
 

I'm happy to answer any questions, Allie, if we got any.  
 

[00:47:11] Allie: We have some and there's still some, there is time still to send any in that you guys have. Thank you again, Stacey, for walking us through all that content. It's a lot to get into and we only cover shortages, so if you have other questions, Stacey also has information on other shortage Claims or deduction claims. 
 

And this one's about overages. So Fern asked, can you invoice for overages above what the was on the original invoice?  
 

[00:47:39] Stacy: Okay, great question. So yes and. so yes, the concept of invoicing for overages does exist at Walmart. It's pretty interesting. We will actually see anywhere between a and obviously for valid overages, right? 
 

They don't just start sending new invoices to Walmart, but for valid overages, we will actually see win rates in the 70 to 90 percent range. So yes, the concept of invoicing for overages is One thing Walmart recommends first is for you to fight the shortage deduction first, because usually what will happen is there will be a deduction and an overage on the same PO, which is what we talked about earlier in our webinar today. 
 

So they recommend that you fight the deduction first, and then that should be fine. Quote unquote should fix things, if it doesn't fix things and Walmart denies your shortage or whatever it is then absolutely you can invoice for that overage. Usually what you would want to do is you send the invoice and then you add some sort of additional like number or like letter at the end to just make it easy for you to tie back to the original invoice but so Walmart knows that you're not re invoicing so you don't get a code fine. 
 

so you could be like Invoice12345 1, and then that should work. yes, very common. I would say, you know, I don't want to spend too much time because I know today is more of a shortages discussion. We do have a lot of webinars and content on overages as well. If that is something that you guys are not looking into today, I would recommend starting to understand that. 
 

you can get a lot of receipt information out of the Nova app in, RetailLink. and I know for a lot of us that have done this for a while, DSS is going away, which is scary. It's gone. It's gone, I know. Ugh, sad. and so there are some types of information you can get out of Luminate, but Nova should be a pretty good resource for you just to understand. 
 

Receipt information there. so yeah, if you're not looking at overages, we actually will work with some folks and find, honestly, like tens of thousands of dollars worth of overages that you can go for and win with Walmart.  
 

[00:49:55] Allie: Yeah, and maybe that's a great transition into kind of some of our next slides too. 
 

I did send a deck on overages. If you are interested, we have content on that. Stacey has changed the slide to some of our ebooks that we have. This is again a drop in the bucket of the content that we have available and if you don't see what you're looking for on the next slide is my email or Stacy's. 
 

Please send us an email if you're looking for, hey I don't see a slide deck on Nova or SupplierOne or Luminate or on it at a different retailer entirely. We'd love to research and create something that's helpful for you and your team. So thank you guys again. Oh, go ahead, Stacey. Oh, sorry. I was going to say pro tip. 
 

[00:50:35] Stacy: It's all free. this costs you nothing. So go to check us out.  
 

[00:50:40] Allie: Yes, for sure. Again, if you don't want to stay. For our, product preview. That's what Stacy's going to transition to now, but thank you for joining for our educational content. We're going to walk through how we dispute shortages automatically. 
 

And I'm sure Stacy can also show if anyone's interested, our, solution for Walmart overages as well. So, you've got it pulled up, Stacy. So I'll let you take it away.  
 

[00:51:08] Stacy: Awesome. Thank you Ally. So yeah, it's, as Ally mentioned, we always like to show, rather than tell you guys what we do. if you are dealing with deductions and shortages, and it's a pain point for you at Walmart, Kroger, target, Amazon, home Depot, CVS, we'd love to talk to you guys, but just to give you an idea of, what we do here at SupplyPike. 
 

and so we create software to essentially help you automate the. The process of getting deductions back across different buckets, of RevLoss. so obviously we spent a lot of time talking about shortages today, which is a type of AP deductions. Again, we only talked about three out of the 70 different codes there are. 
 

but we also provide solutions, just again, just example at Walmart, you know, Kroger, Target, Amazon will have similar breakdowns, but we can also help you to invoice for overages, give you visibility around post audits, which is another nightmare. and also provide support around, OnTime and Fool as well as that SQEP program that I mentioned. 
 

But I'll go super, high level, just to give you guys an idea. Essentially, we're able to first provide visibility, which I, again, if you guys have done Walmart, you know, It shouldn't be this hard to get this much information, but it can be. we tie to over 12 different applications in RetailLink to stitch together all of this data for you. 
 

So you just have it, you know, with literally one click, which is really nice. we'll show you guys All of the deductions that you have received, anything that is still on the table, so what you've not taken action on, anything that's awaiting repayment, what's been paid back, as well as your win rate. 
 

And this is something that we track every single day, so you are always getting a refreshed view of what's going on with your Walmart business. We will actually show you guys what your top codes are, not only by count, but by dollar as well. So again, I mentioned it earlier. I wasn't kidding. 
 

A big philosophy that we have at Walmart or at SupplyPike is just, hey, understand where you're getting a lot of your deductions so that you know where to send your resources to. hey, we know we're getting a lot of code 25s, for an example, but we're Hey, cool. That's an easy fix. Let's just start working with the invoicing team to understand when we're sending those invoices out so that we can minimize this from happening at all. 
 

for us, we believe, better to understand why and diagnose the root cause than do the hamster wheel of we know code 22s are bad, but we don't really have time to understand how we're getting them. So we're just going to keep fighting them. And then, you know, you'll never learn and you'll never mitigate again inflow in the future. 
 

So we show you all of the different reasons for why you're getting claim codes. And one thing that I think is really interesting is we are also able to diagnose for you root causes of why you're getting these deductions. So we'll show you all the way down to, oh, we believe this is an invalid deduction because the allowance was not found on your supplier agreement. 
 

So again, we talked a lot about shortages today, but we provide support for all 70 codes that you can dispute in APDP. So we'll even pull your supplier agreements and actually help you fight any invoice allowances you have. and, all of that good stuff. So we'll again, give you the root causes there. 
 

We'll show you trends over time, deductions by item number. So this is actually shockingly hard to get out of retail link. and we're able to show this to you guys. You know, a lot of teams will utilize this to understand like, Hey, we have an item here that maybe only makes up. 10 percent of our sales, but for some reason is responsible for 25 percent of our deductions. 
 

What is going on here? Did we expect it? Did we not? How are we shipping? Is it a new item? So again, just allowing you guys to really quickly diagnose where you should be spending your time rather than in APDP typing up claim numbers like 40 hours a week. I'll also show you deductions by location and even deductions by amount. 
 

I think this one is really powerful too, because a lot of teams that we work with, if you guys are doing deductions today, you know that there is usually some sort of dollar threshold where it doesn't really make sense for your team to go after, so usually we'll see that in the 100 to 500 range, where we'll say, hey, anything under 100. 
 

It just doesn't make sense. It takes us 30 minutes to research and submit a claim. Let's just write it off. And I think it's really important to understand, hey, when I'm writing off 100 threshold claims, I'm writing off 30, 000 worth of money that should be mine. and again, really important to say, hey, this is worth it for me to dedicate a resource or whatever it is. 
 

or you know what, it's three, you know, it's 3, 000. Eh, like it's fine. I'm not going to lose sleep over it. So again, Just pretty interesting information here, and then I'll click into the deductions page, which is really the meat and potatoes of the application, so to speak. So we will pull every single deduction that you have received, over the last two years. 
 

So that's Walmart's kind of single deduction. And we will show you, again, all of the different information that is relevant for each. I think one thing that's interesting, too, is we'll even give you information around when these codes are going to expire. So if you want to prioritize, hey, we should really get to the codes that are expiring in 16 days. 
 

We can do that. you know, for those of you guys who may be a little bit more familiar with the process, you know, if Walmart kicks anything back to you and it's in supplier action, you actually have 14 days to respond or it gets cancelled out and you have to start all over again. and so either you're having to log into APDP every day, Or you can utilize something like SupplyPike, and we will call that out for you to say, hey, you have this many days to go after it, let's make that a priority. 
 

So we have, you know, tons and tons of filters around what's been disputed, what's not, what codes to focus on, root causes, what has documents, what doesn't, and so you can get very, yeah, surgical precision with how you're tackling these, deductions that you receive. So I will call out just two more things and then I will stop talking. 
 

but again, just wanted to show you guys, this is not a view you can get out of RetailLink, period. Now, in theory, you could obviously connect to those 12 applications yourself and build some like master spreadsheet in Excel. but again, anyone that's done this with Walmart, you know, it's going to take time and it's no fun and you know, you're lucky if you can get into RetailLink today. 
 

So it's really, nice when you're able to just get all of this literally as you guys saw with one click. So we're pulling claim information, all of the order information automatically for you, including check information, the root causes, and then even showing you the deduction history. So if it's, and if it's been sent to Walmart before for review and got denied for a specific reason, we'll call that out. 
 

one thing that I wanted to make sure that I showed you guys was in addition to all of this information, which comes from RetailInc, that's great. We are also actually automatically pulling your shipping documents for you. So we have integrations with over 120 different carriers and 3PLs where you don't even have to get documents anymore. 
 

It's great. so we will literally You know, get and go into the carrier portals or we have OCR technology that can actually scan the BOLs. and we will parse them out for you. You don't have to label them a specific way and they'll get automatically attached to the relevant claim. So we'll look for, example, the PO number, we'll BOLs, find that PO number and automatically attach it for you. 
 

And essentially all you have to do is literally click one button and it gets sent off. There's also some business logic built in, so we can see here. So let's just say, you know, we've talked about code 22s today, and we said you have to have a BOL. So let's say we unclicked that and said, oh, we only have these documents automatically attached. 
 

It will tell you that you're missing a document and that we recommend a BOL. So that we are maximizing your chances for success with Walmart, because if you were to ship this without a BOL to Walmart, you would 99 percent chance get denied. so again, just easy business logic built in for you guys. So you're not having to deal with it, which is really nice. 
 

so yeah, so you can obviously dispute each one claim by claim. We also have bulk disputing. We can do up to a hundred at a time and actually up to 750 in a single day. and then I wanted to show you guys as well, we have the ability to pay. AutoDispute. So you can go through every code and decide, okay, I want to auto dispute code 22s that are invalid, that are under 1,000. 
 

So that's a very common workflow that we see for our suppliers where they'll go, hey, anything under 1,000, I don't care. As long as you have the documents, you send it off for me. Anything over 1, I want my team to have eyes on because, hey, we want to make sure, like, why did we get that deduction? So the goal with us is to get you guys to deduction, you know, inbox zero. 
 

And instead of, again, spending 40 hours sending claim by claim by claim you're just going in and managing the exception. hey, maybe once a week you go in and you're shooting two offs. instead of 200. so yeah, that is, SupplyPike in a nutshell. And last thing I'll call out for you guys is, I think this is pretty cool. 
 

Obviously I'm a little biased, we have the ability to do a completely free audit for you guys. So we will actually pull your data in. to the application, and show you all the opportunities, show you your top codes, basically everything you see here will do, but for your data, and it's completely free. 
 

I always tell people like, to me, it never hurts to look at the information, even if, hey, you go in and you're like, honestly, We're clean. We run a clean ship. then cool. At the very least, you've gotten a free report out of it. And you know, and you can, you know, have your mind at ease and not worry about it until next year or whatever it is. 
 

so I would recommend doing the free audit. if you're interested, you just have to reach out to Ali or myself. I think they'll get follow up emails, Ali? Yep, and then just sign up there and that's pretty easy. But, hopefully this was interesting for you guys. 
 

Oh, Allie, I think you were muted.  
 

[01:01:43] Allie: Oh, I'm not muted now. thank you Stacy again for leading us through today's content. Thank you for everybody for sticking around. and we hope to see you at another webinar.