SupplyPike Academy: How To Automate Walmart Overages

7.25 SupplyPike Academy | How to Automate Walmart Overages 
 

[00:00:00] Bry Alexander: Thank you all for hopping on to the SupplyPike Academy, how to automate your Walmart overages. I am going to be your host, Bry Alexander. I am one of our Enterprise Customer Success Managers. We have with us Hudson, who is a Product Manager on our Walmart side. He is a main part of what makes the app function, so we're super excited for him to Hop on, and, walk us through the Overages app. 
 

Again, there is a Q& A button at the bottom. If you have any questions, please feel free to put them in there. We'll make sure that they're addressed in a timely manner. or if it's something that we know that's going to be, discussed during the presentation, we'll be sure and say, Hey, we see it. We'll, definitely be, showing this. 
 

so yeah, I'm excited to get started and yeah. thanks so much again for joining us, Hudson. 
 

[00:00:58] Hudson Bercier: Absolutely. Just a quick overview of today's agenda. we're gonna be spending a little bit of time just talking about some general knowledge on overages at Walmart. then we're gonna spend a little bit more time in addition on, how does Supply Pike solve for, the overages issue. 
 

and we'll take a quick demo of that and then to end our time today, we'll go into a q and a and discussion where you guys can ask as many questions as you'd like to. And, I will do my best to answer them. All right. Thank you all for being here today. And a quick, FAQ. Will we get a copy of this slide deck? 
 

Yes, we will send the slide deck and recording to your inbox in three to four business days. Great way to review and, see, the information thereafter. and what's the best way to ask a question? Bry was mentioning, there's a Q& A tab on Zoom. That's the easiest way for us to see your question. 
 

And, the chat is the best way to engage with the whole group and make sure to share some helpful information. We can go ahead and get started. Obviously today's topic being overages at Walmart. All right, let's just start from the basics. What are overages? So really what overages are is a Walmart or a retailer has received an excess of goods compared to what you've ordered. 
 

for example, Walmart ordered 10 items from this supplier, but they ended up receiving 15. Regardless of what happened there before, regardless of where those items came from, the retailer actually got more than what they were expecting, which means that they have more sitting in their inventory. 
 

so specifically Walmart's definition here, it's an amount of inventory stock that exceeds the inventory expected in a great little graphic here below, so the supplier invoiced for three of these little juice boxes. and, Walmart actually received about six of them, which would make three overages. 
 

so pretty simple in concept, but there are certainly some complications when it comes to overages, maybe how they actually arise, what you can actually do about it, how can you get better, and then, how does Walmart maybe, punish suppliers, generally speaking for, these types of situations. 
 

We'll be getting into all of those today. All right. So like I said, so two different ways of understanding overages that we'll be talking about today. the first one, billable overages, and that's going to be a lot more tied to the functionality that we provide, in our app. And for billable overages, it's just sending too many units to Walmart. 
 

but a billable overage specifically describes a situation where the revenue has been lost because Walmart wasn't going to pay for the extra items that they received. these are technically billable, because other suppliers have seen success billing Walmart for these extra items. This has been a practice, going on for a few years now and SupplyPike has, created some functionality within our own application. 
 

to be able to support this process and help you with about 80 percent of the work that's generally required for billing for overages, which is fantastic. I really love this feature. so really the way I like to define billable overages, however, is, Walmart has received more in the value of those goods. 
 

then what they paid you on your invoice or what they sent you on a check. And so really this means some of your goods, some of the goods that you sent that they still have on hand, they haven't paid for. And so that's another opportunity for you to make sure that you're getting paid for everything that you're owed at the end of the day, regardless of whether or not that was a true overage. 
 

and we'll get into more of that later, or any sort of, source of why that overage came to be. so the second way of understanding overages is an overage fine. overage fines are just Walmart's way of DD incentivizing, that you, you send too much product to the DC and then billing for it later. 
 

in the que program, these fines are sent as a failure to comply to PO accuracy. That's gonna be specifically a sweat. so that'll typically show up if, Walmart is actually checking for the PL accuracy and see that. You've actually shipped them more than what you originally planned to ship, according to either the ASN or even, just based on what you ordered in general or what they ordered from you. 
 

So two different ways of understanding that. 
 

as I was alluding to, there are a couple different root causes of, overages. the first one I've mentioned, which are true overages. This is simply just, your clear cut example where the supplier has simply just sent too much product. This could mean that you were expected to give Walmart three items, but your team accidentally sent six. 
 

And so that, that means they have an excess of three different items. and with that being said, Walmart might recognize that and say hey, you sent us too much. that means, we may not be able to hold. So we're going to actually charge you a fine because we want to make sure that you don't, keep this practice up and send us more product than we're asking for typically. 
 

and so we will also get into that in a little bit as well in terms of how Walmart can hit you if have overages and maybe their relationship to shortages, which is our next, root cause, is shortage triggered overages. So this is, this seems to be more common in what happens with overages where either on one particular PO, You see a shortage in one item and an overage on another, or you can even see this go across different orders or POs, where one PO might see, a shortage on one particular item and, the other PO that it might be related to saw an overage. 
 

Those might be the same items. They all, we've also seen examples where they might be different items just based on the way that one were received. And the one other thing I wanted to point out in the shortage triggered overages, this can also happen on multiple POs that go to different DCs. We'll talk about a little bit of that later as well, but that is also a common scenario for those that go through a consolidation center such as CenterPoint. 
 

just two more common ways of, why overages can take place. just move on from that. a few other reasons that overages might occur. one of those being shortages, like we mentioned, sending POs to the wrong DC. that can happen as well, inaccurate demand planning, issues with Nova, the order management system, labeling and packaging, in which, the receiving teams might have a little bit of confusion on how to receive certain items or pallets, as they get to the DC, and then possibly an item setup issue within item 360. 
 

And I know some of that is actually going to be wrapped up a little bit later, as Walmart has been rolling out SupplierOne. And so some of that, could be helped there as well. so something to pay attention for there as well. Bry, did you have a question? 
 

[00:08:32] Bry Alexander: Yeah, somebody in the chat asked, mentioned that they receive code 25s for overage rebills. 
 

and on those we load the inventory receipt report. So going back to the shortages that you're talking about there. they're wondering if that's, that Inventory Received Report is something that they can build themselves, or if that's something that we're pulling, like, where, we're pulling that and if that's something they can go grab. 
 

[00:08:58] Hudson Bercier: Yeah, that's a, great question. for the Inventory Received Report in, relationship with, and OveragePO. So we're grabbing that information from a couple different sources. We're looking at invoicing information, we're looking at order received information, ASN information, and gathering that data into one spot. 
 

Now using that data or even creating that kind of report yourself would still be a very manual process when it comes down to finding billable overage opportunities to begin with, which is why we came up with the solution that we did and so when you've billed for that overage and maybe receive a deduction, which we typically see, a little bit more often, suppliers seeing deductions come after billing for overages, but, do not fret that is a common practice. 
 

What will happen is, you would just, submit a dispute as you normally would, and, including any sort of proof documentation you might have. And, we've seen about upwards of 70%, one back in terms of, disputing as along with invoicing for these overages. so in terms of that specific question, hopefully I answered it in terms of the inventory received report. 
 

[00:10:15] Bry Alexander: Awesome. Yeah. Thank you Hudson. 
 

[00:10:18] Hudson Bercier: Of course. All right. quick question for the chat. Are there other root causes of overages that your team has experienced besides the ones that we've mentioned? Feel free to throw that in there and we can, we can look at it and chat about it a little later too. 
 

All right. We have the ripple effect from shortages. So like I was talking about before, the issue of, shortages and overages can be compounded if the supplier shorts one DC's order and then sends an overage to another. This is what I was talking about where. You might have two different POs that are sitting on one truck. 
 

You might be going to a consolidation center, and these orders are actually going to go to different places. And pretty easy concept to understand, but, in terms of how they're consolidated, how they're received at the center point or the consolidation center, There can be a little bit of confusion on what palettes or what packages need to go where. 
 

And so that can create situations like this, where, you know, one DC received short of what they were expecting, Walmart as is, and then another DC can see an overage of what they were expecting. So just, typically things like maybe human error or, some automation, bugging and, things along those lines. 
 

where, this can cause a shortage and an overage at two completely different locations, which might be confusing at first. Why did, that happen and how are these related? And that's something that, might be helpful to look into in the future. what, which POs experienced these shortages and overages? 
 

Did they happen to have the same load number? It, that's something you might want to pay attention to as a supplier. If you want to maybe better understand how can we know maybe what things we can put into place to help with, the shortages and overages and making sure that we can start to prevent those on that side. 
 

One of the last things we wanted to cover was the impact of shortages and overages. Like I said before, Walmart can hit you in a few different ways if you've got shortage and overage issues that take place. First of those being a deduction. This would be your typical run of the mill AP deduction. 
 

This is going to go into, shortages such as your 22s, 24s, things like that, even 25s. And they're going to basically just be hitting you for the fact that on this particular PO, you invoiced for this much, But you've, we've only received this much, which you, they're claiming that you're short. 
 

But in reality, that you could have sent all the products that you needed to on that PL, but the way it was received, could, there could have been a mistake in terms of how it was input in the system and, creates, a situation where Walmart feels like it needs to issue a deduction. 
 

The next one would be a PO defect, really more specifically, Walmart utilizing their SQEP program, to issue a defect, and that would be specifically an overage defect in which, Walmart is, seeing on this other PO that this situation might, have, and they're saying, hey, you gave us too much product, like I've been saying, we're And they're going to actually issue you a fine. 
 

So then that way, they're not incentivizing you to send too much product in general. And then the third and last way is an OTIF fine. Obviously, if one PO has, the shortage, then your info rate will start to go down and your supplier score will be affected over time if you have too many situations in which you were not able to fill orders based on what Walmart is seeing in their own data across that time period. 
 

And one of the most difficult parts, I would say, about, tackling these problems and disputing them, because obviously, they're, you have your own proof documentation to be able to dispute these kind of charges on your side. However, for examples 1, versus 2 and 3, Those are actually going to be two different teams that might be reviewing those disputes. 
 

So team one, that's going to be, Genpact, as you dispute through APDP, that Genpact is the team that will review your dispute, look through your proof documentation and make a judgment of whether or not they will approve or deny your deduction. Now, let's say you got that approved. we've typically seen suppliers try to, take the approval of a shortage, on a AP deduction and say, hey, high radius where I'm disputing these overage defects or these in full fines and say, hey, we got these, we got these shortages, disputed and approved, would you mind approving that on this side too? 
 

Those teams don't typically talk, and they have their own review process, and so that can make things difficult in terms of, disputing the shortage on one side, getting approved, but then trying to get it on the other side, and using the same kind of proof documentation, or even using that Approval as a way to say, Hey, this wasn't short, this other team showed me that, we actually did send it in full. 
 

Would you mind paying us back on this side? So definitely something to keep, awareness around is the two different teams that might look after your dispute, reviews, in those, areas. that's the impact of shortages and overages. All right, before we take a closer look at Overages and, SupplyPike, Bryan, did we have any other questions we wanted to get into before, hopping into a demo? 
 

[00:16:03] Bry Alexander: Yeah, so something that has come up and this may be addressed during this process is, we've recently changed our, our, logic within the app to not include an overage if it has a shortage, because that we recommend, disputing that shortage first. So can you just walk through why that is the case and why we have introduced that logic and why disputing the shortage first is so important, prior to, filing or re invoicing for the overage? 
 

[00:16:34] Hudson Bercier: Yeah, that's a great question and definitely super important and that's why we added the logic around that. so the reason that we did that in the particular situation that Bry is pointing out is when we see an overage and a shortage on the same PO. or even across POs where we see the, overage and the shortage. 
 

So the reason why we recommend and actually built into the logic. any sort of PO that has both that overage and the shortage on the same thing, we've seen, some history in, Facebook group, and other, methods where, Walmart is actually recommending and encouraging suppliers to actually go after that shortage first, to, to dispute that with an APDP, as you would, and if that is denied, our logic will actually pick that up and, create an opportunity on the billable overage aside. 
 

to follow and, be conservative on how we're approaching this, making sure that suppliers are not getting in trouble with Walmart when, they've recommended going after that shortage first, if they're on the same PO versus billing for that overage, at first as well. that's typically what they want and that's what we added into our logic to make that, happen. 
 

[00:17:51] Bry Alexander: Awesome. Yeah. Thank you, Edson. Yeah, of course. Cool.  
 

[00:17:56] Hudson Bercier: All right. we can go ahead and hop into a quick demo. Welcome to, SupplyPike, specifically the Overridges page. we're here on our demo company to show off a few different things. first thing you'll notice is these two high level metrics or KPIs at the top of the page. 
 

One of them is going to show a billable amount. So let's say you're a supplier in our system, that's going to total the, the, entire opportunity that you might have to go after billable overages, in our system. and then that second, KPR metric is actually going to go over, hey, I've already billed Walmart for these overages. 
 

They've processed a check and paid for, some of these overage, amounts and that's where that's going to populate. And it's really your success in billing Walmart for overages. And then we have some sort of submetrics below, the first one being the amount of purchase orders that are involved, throughout the entire range of what we've grabbed for you. 
 

And then in addition, when we've detected payment on these overage invoices, we're going to not only show what was paid here at the top, but then we're also going to show here at the bottom if they didn't pay the entire amount, how much did we detect that you had invoiced, in, in addition to that? 
 

And then that way you can have an understanding of, okay, seems like Walmart, is paying about, 50 percent of what we're originally invoicing, but then they're going to get into actually deducting possibly, which seems to be a common practice when suppliers actually bill Walmart for overages, like I mentioned. 
 

but like I said, No worries. if you are part of our system and, you are billing for overages and you've gotten a deduction, that's going to appear right where, the remainder of the deductions will actually show up in the deductions portions of our app, and you'll be able to dispute it or auto dispute it just like normal. 
 

and as soon as that takes place and you get paid back, then you're all done. You've already taken care of that particular PO. Those POs in that month, and you can start to move on from that situation. You've been made whole. moving on to the overages over time piece of the page. this is pretty simple. 
 

We've got just a, super concise list of the, the months that we have, a report available for, and those available reports, the first one being detailed overages. That is going to help the supplier understand, okay, let's look at all the POs that have, that we've identified overages for. and Bry said, it's gonna, not include the POs that have a shortage on that same PO, unless it was a denied shortage attempt, then we will add that opportunity. 
 

So this is going to highlight in detail, the overages that we've detected. This is going to include some PO information. This is going to include, some receiving, invoicing information, and we're gonna, we put it in a very organized way so where you can clearly read, what PO was affected, what were the items that were on this PO, which ones were over, and what our recommendation is in terms of actually billing Walmart for these overages. 
 

next, the next, report is the billable overages. This is going to be a lot more concise. This is going to be, let's, just drill right down to, okay, give me the POs that I need to be billing for. Give me the, particular information I need in order to invoice Walmart for these overages and let's, cut out the funny business. 
 

We don't need any other details. Let's just, tell me exactly what I need to know in order to actually invoice Walmart for these. So that's going to be the purpose of the billable overages report. And then the last one, this is after you've sent your invoices and you're you're starting to see some payments roll in from Walmart. 
 

The payment overages report is going to give you just a quick roll up of, hey, For these POs that we've detected payment or deductions for, these are your results. And we're going to give you some pertinent information around that, and then that way you can start to do some reconciling in your own system, for billing for these overages. 
 

And, yeah, those are the three overage, reports available. real quick, we, I wanted to highlight, this list view page. you'll notice that this is broken up by month. So we release one month at a time and you might be asking, Hudson, why is, the most recent month only February? 
 

That is because we have a 125 day gap between, when the invoice dates or the MABD date, of that PO was, and when we actually make an overage judgment. And then that being said, that is taking into account, hey, we want to make sure all the information in Walmart's system is as up to date as it can, everything has been paid for, all the invoices that might be involved with that PO have been accounted for, and then making sure that we have all of our ducks in a row in order to make a conservative and accurate judgment. 
 

Rather than, recommending for overages very early on and possibly running into some issues where there might be duplicate invoices. Some of the, the P. O. has not been paid for yet when it should have and those kind of things. So we want to make sure to give, are suppliers the most updated information that they could possibly get in all sorts of places throughout this report. 
 

And that's why we do that. And we roll it out in full months. And as soon as we hit that 125 mark, March should be coming out very soon here, to, actually bill for those overages, Brad, did you have a question?  
 

[00:24:08] Bry Alexander: Yeah. I just wanted to also mention, so Hudson. You mentioned that we have 125 day wait period, but how far back can they actually dispute these overages? 
 

[00:24:19] Hudson Bercier: Yeah, that's a great question. We, have seen historically that about the two year mark, as you seen on the deduction side in terms of, what is the expiration date, we can go back about two years. Now we're, if you're a newly onboarded supplier, we're going to already be grabbing two years worth of your data and making those judgments, as, as they come up. 
 

And, yeah, we've seen about two years looking back that you can sort of bill for. We have seen just a few examples, and this is not something we recommend, but this is something that we're going to keep an eye out for sure, where some suppliers have even tested just beyond the two year exact mark, where they've actually looked to calendar years back to actually go after those opportunities. 
 

And what's really great about our system is if you've stayed with us for a little bit longer, We're actually going to be holding on to the opportunities beyond that two year mark, just in case you wanted to go after it, but we're not actually going to recommend that you bill for those. And we'll make sure that you are aware of that situation as you're going through the process as well. 
 

So that's a great question. 
 

[00:25:26] Bry Alexander: Awesome. 
 

[00:25:26] Hudson Bercier: Yeah, thank you. Alright, so we've been over, hey, what are the opportunities we're presenting here, what are the kind of reports that we can, we can provide here at SupplyPike in the billing for overages and seeing the reporting on those overages. Yeah, that's the, the all encompassing Overages, solution that we have here at Walmart. 
 

I think now would be a great time to, to move on to the Q& A unless we have some immediate questions specifically on, the Overages feature here in the app. 
 

[00:26:02] Bry Alexander: not seeing anything so far, but, yeah. if you have any questions about the app or any of the Overages process in general, feel free to go ahead and put those into the, into the Q& A now. 
 

And I just want to say, yeah, thank you, Hudson, for that, walkthrough of the app itself. I think, as a CSM, a lot of the customers that we have are, at first a little bit daunted by the fact of the overages, but once they understand it, and especially now with the billable overages report, where it does simplify it, it, it is really just something that we are seeing a lot of customers become very happy with, the process and how much easier it is for them to, get the information in order to be able to dispute. 
 

So yeah, major shout out to, the product team for being able to, get that information and simplify it as much as possible. 
 

[00:26:58] Hudson Bercier: So appreciate that, Bry. All right. And as you said, we're going to move on to a live Q& A. So feel free to throw any questions that you've either been holding on to or anything like that about anything, knowledge based overages or even overages in SupplyPike. 
 

And then we can go from there. 
 

[00:27:20] Bry Alexander: looks like we have one. when you're disputing code 25s and APDP pushes back for a POD, in regards to overages, any pointers on how to be repaid when there's no, overage note on the BOL? 
 

[00:27:35] Hudson Bercier: Yeah, that's a great question. our recommendation is to, like we were mentioning before in the Inventory Receipt Report, that might be another great piece of documentation that you can add to your dispute process. 
 

And they might be asking for a POD, yes, but generally speaking, about upwards of 70 to 80 percent of the time, Walmart's actually going to auto approve some of these overage invoice, Sourced deductions as well. so we typically see other suppliers continuing with that process. Now, it may not be 100%. 
 

We don't want to guarantee that. sometimes mistakes happen as well. but if you're not able to actually provide a proof document, which is definitely okay, there are going to be times where you shouldn't be afraid to actually go after that dispute. and Walmart will still, likely approve it anyway. 
 

but if you're within our system and, we're looking around for any sort of proof documentation, we've got that taken care of. we'll do that work for you, and then that way, if there is an issue, we'll let you know, but we're likely going to be able to find something for you and actually provide that proof documentation, if that answers your question. 
 

[00:29:05] Bry Alexander: let's see. It looks like we do have another question. will there be a point where we're able to attach BOLs to the overage report? they're, they billed for some of the overages, but they're claiming, no POD merchandise received for, an invoice, like a code 25.  
 

[00:29:23] Hudson Bercier: that's a really good question as well. 
 

What we've seen work in this process and what we want to make sure we encourage our suppliers to do is when you're actually billing Walmart for we've actually gotten that question before where it's do we need to provide any sort of documentation to say Hey, this is an overage invoice. 
 

we want to make sure that you guys know that. but generally we've seen the most success in just sending a normal invoice, whether that's manual or if that's through your normal EDI process. that way Walmart's going to view it as, okay, this is just an invoice for PO that's, been sent to us and we're going to read it as such. 
 

We're going to read it within. Your payment terms, let's say that's 30, 60, 120 days, we're gonna, check our system and say, hey, did we receive any goods for, the PO that you're invoicing for? And go through that normal process. and so we encourage when you're invoicing to make sure, you're referencing that older PO. 
 

You're making sure that the invoice date is actually referencing the original invoice date. And then you want to make sure if you're doing a new invoice number that you're following Walmart's recommendations and not adding any sort of letters or dashes or anything like that, symbols, and providing a new invoice number, a unique invoice number. 
 

and then that way Walmart will read it as a normal invoice. And typically, that has helped suppliers who have seen some issues, getting the ball rolling on starting to invoice for overages. but we've seen some success thereafter. 
 

[00:31:04] Bry Alexander: Very cool. Appreciate that. 
 

[00:31:08] Hudson Bercier: All right. Any, last questions before we begin to close out? 
 

[00:31:18] Bry Alexander: And please keep in mind, if you do have any questions that we're unable to, address during this time or anything comes up afterwards, don't hesitate to reach out to us at support, at SupplyPike. com. we can answer those questions. You can actually reach out to, Hudson, or myself directly from that. 
 

we can hop in and take over and answer, any questions that you may have, but our amazing support team will, help you out. And yeah, like Hudson has pulled up there, we have a ton of support resources out on, our, Help Center and our SupplierWiki. To make sure that you are getting the answers that you need. 
 

there are also always our Supply Pike Academy webinars and workshops that we do here. So yeah, I would just encourage you, if you do have any questions that come up, don't hold them in, feel free to reach out anytime you're in our app and you see the little, Chat bubble with a smiley. Feel free to reach out to the support team directly, or if you want to email us in the question, again, we'll make sure that gets to the, to the correct person and we can help you out accordingly. 
 

So, very cool. Awesome. You bug Brandon at least once a week. Yeah. I, our, support team is very responsive and they love to, they love to be able to help as much as they can. and yeah, I will make sure that, Brandon, gets. Get notified of his shout out though. Thank you so much. but yeah, as I mentioned, feel free to contact me or Hudson at any time, or feel free to reach out to the support at SupplyPike.com. again, we'll make sure that we're getting you, the, answers that you need to any questions about overages or just anything in general, our app or supply chain that you may have, or feel free to hop on to supplypike. com and use some of our wonderful resources, the help center, I think has been a useful tool, even somebody internally.  
 

yeah, but I think if there are no more questions, I just want to say thank you so much to everyone for being able to hop on today. Thank you so much for, Hudson for, walking us through the application and explaining a little bit more of the overages. and yeah, we'll stay on for a couple more minutes if anybody does have any questions, but outside of that, thank you guys so much and, we'll talk to you soon. 
 

Have a great day. 
 

[00:33:47] Hudson Bercier: Thank you, everyone. Thanks for having me.