Ultimate OTIF

[00:00:00] Melodie Hays: I'm Melodie. I'm the VP of Marketing over here at SupplyPike. I've helped create SupplierWiki, which is the platform where we share a lot of free resources for just suppliers, because we saw that that wasn't, that wasn't really something that was available on the market at the time. So I'll be leading today's content and we have Peter here as well. 
 

You want to introduce yourself, Peter?  
 

[00:00:27] Peter Spaulding: Yes, I'm Peter. I'm a content coordinator. We are here to kind of create free educational content for suppliers, retail suppliers of all stripes, not just Walmart. And so my focus lately has been SQEP and compliance. So I'm always excited to talk about OTIF, but but yeah, we're here really to be a resource to whatever you guys need. 
 

So, it's great to meet you. It's great to meet you all. Let us know what you want to hear about. What's something that you have questions about? What are some kind of blind spots in your kind of retail education? Let us know that. That's what we're here for. Awesome. Alright, so here's our agenda for the day. 
 

We're going to start off with a conversation more about metrics of OTIF, as a kind of more of a high level introduction to the subject. Then we'll get into a little bit of root cause analysis with OTIP, which is, of course, the, I think, maybe the most important issue. We're all about avoiding compliance deductions at SupplyPike, not just disputing invalid ones. 
 

But we will get into that at the end with a more of a detailed conversation about how to dispute OTIF fines. It's a little different from AP deductions at Walmart. Then we'll do our little Q&A, we'll save some questions for the end, maybe, any questions that you guys have at that point we can kind of address and go through, and then we'll do a little bit of a product preview of our SupplyPike for Walmart specifically the compliance feature within that. 
 

[00:02:09] Melodie Hays: Perfect. All right. 
 

[00:02:12] Peter Spaulding: Got a couple of frequently asked questions here. We get a lot of questions during the webinar on the subject at hand. So please use the Q&A tab at the bottom of your screen there for those more kind of formal questions. The chat we use more informally as a way of talking with everyone on the call. 
 

All right. So if we have a question for you where it's, you know is this something that you've seen in your business or is this something that you guys struggle with? That's what the chat is for, is for everyone to kind of talk together and share resources. I'll be sharing some resources as we kind of go throughout the webinar there for everyone to kind of see as well. 
 

So we want that to be the more kind of communal space. The Q&A section is just so that we can kind of organize questions according to what we are going to talk about. Maybe there's one question that's more relevant for the portion on root cause analysis. So I'll I'll ask Melodie that question towards the end of that section, but then maybe there's some questions that we want to say to the end. 
 

So that's how we differentiate those two. Another question we receive basically every time we do one of these is, will we receive a copy of the slide deck? You will receive a copy of the slide deck. You'll also get a recording of, of the webinar later on as well. We put all of our webinars on our YouTube channel, SupplyPike YouTube. 
 

Go ahead and subscribe to that if you want to just kind of stay in the know with the things that we're covering. It's, it will be a lot like our newsletter. All of our webinars will be going up on that platform. So if you're interested in that, go ahead and subscribe there, but it will take about three or four days to get this slide deck out to you and the recording. 
 

We've got our, we have to have our designers work on them a little bit too. But yeah. 
 

[00:03:56] Melodie Hays: Sweet. Yeah, so who is SupplyPike? So SupplyPike, we We started SupplierWiki, but even before that we created a product that allowed for, allows for CPGs to help reduce and recover any revenue loss that they might be experiencing. 
 

So we do this by both doing some root cause analysis for you guys, as well as automating that dispute process so that you can go and actually recover the money. So both prevention and recovery all in one, one platform. So we've helped over 400 different suppliers, and we've covered over 25 billion or represented over 25 billion in retail impact across pretty much all of the product categories. 
 

So you can see down at the bottom, these are some of the suppliers that we've worked with, but Yeah, that's a little bit about us. This will be the, the first pitch. We just get this question a lot. A lot of people think, you know, are you with Walmart or, you know, who are you guys? So just want to give you guys that brief overview. 
 

If you're curious about learning more about our products, again, at the end, after an hour worth of content we'll be going over one of our products that actually helps us it will help suppliers recover any compliance fines that they actually might be facing. So stick around for that if you're interested. 
 

All right. But that's our soft pitch. So let's go into disputing OTIF fines. So I know that's what everyone is here to talk about today. We're going to be covering a lot of content, so get ready. Okay. So we have what are Walmart's fines? So there are three different programs that Walmart has in order to. 
 

Hold their suppliers accountable as well as fine their suppliers if they find that they are, you know, breaching the accountability that they've kind of set forth. So, you can see that in both deductions. These are going to be AP related deductions, OTIF fines one of the things that we're going to be covering here today, and one of their newest programs, which is actually SQEP fines. 
 

We like to pronounce it SQEP but it stands for Supplier Quality Excellence Program. We have a lot, a lot of content on both AP related deductions as well as SQEP fines, so if you guys are curious when learning more about that I'm sure Peter can throw something in the chat. But high level, AP level deductions, these are going to be coming off the check and they're going to be disputed through something called APDP, so Accounts Payable Dispute Portal. 
 

This is going to be like your shortage related deductions or your allowance related deductions. All of that is going to be actually just taken from your check, and then you have to go and actually dispute it in order to recover those money, that money. It's going to be either valid or invalid. There's a lot of documentation that we actually have on SupplierWiki to determine if something is valid or invalid, and then what documentation that you need to actually go and dispute that. 
 

So if you're curious, go check that out. We have OTIF related fines, so on time and full. That's what we're going to be covering here today. So these are going to be AR related charges, charges, and it's going to actually, be invoiced to you before it is taken from your check. So that's, that's the main difference here. 
 

You're not going to dispute it through APDP, the Accounts Payable Dispute Porter, and Retail Link. You're actually disputing it through a third party if you're doing it not through your buyer, but. If you're doing it through a software, you're going to be disputing it through a third party called High Radius. 
 

So we're going to go really deep into that here today and talk about the two different options that you have. OTIF disputes are informal, so that is one thing that we want to make very clear from here in the beginning. There's kind of an art to disputing OTIF fines versus disputing with deductions is pretty cut and dry, so we'll dive into that. 
 

And then SQEP fines. So SQEP fines, like OTIF fines, are actually going to be invoiced and then and then taken from your check as well. These are going to be package, packaging related compliance fines, and we've actually find where, found where multiple SQEP fines will stack on top of each other. 
 

So on the, the high end, or the When at first glance you're like, SQEP fines, those aren't going to cost me a whole lot of money, what we'll see is that people actually get multiple SQEP fines on a single item or single PO. And so it gets even worse whenever those SQEP fines are actually being impacting you both You have a SQEP fine for a PO, you have an OTIF fine for a PO, and you have an AP deduction for a PO. 
 

We see that happen a lot and it can cost, be very costly. So SQEP fines are also disputed through High Radius, and if you guys are curious, we are also releasing another product here soon to help suppliers with that. So if you're curious, check out, we have a, a little sneak peek on that. Okay, so what is OTIF? 
 

Enough about those other programs. You're You're like, Melodie, I don't care about them. I want to learn about OTIF. All right, what is it? So OTIF is going to be basically a KPI of supply chain access that Walmart uses. So Walmart at the end of the day, just wants to make sure that their products or your products as the supplier are on the shelf whenever they need to be. 
 

And so that the consumer, whenever they go to buy them, It's there. It's they can go and grab it. They're not, you know, going to the store for a specific thing and not seeing it. So Walmart develops this program to make sure everything is on time and in full so at the end of the day that the consumer is getting the product that they need whenever they want it. 
 

If If you are not shipping or suppliers are not shipping things on time or in full, then they're actually going to go and charge you 3 percent of your cost of goods sold for anything that is out, out of compliance. So they expect a 98 percent compliance if you're anything that is out of compliance. 
 

Thanks. Outside of that, they're going to be charging you 3 percent of those cost of goods. Your scores are going to be on a per case basis, and we'll dive into that here in a second, and there's different measurements for on time versus in form. We have an entire, multiple, multiple webinars on just the fundamentals of OTIF. 
 

If you guys are curious on that, I'm sure that's also something that Peter can kind of send in the chat for you guys to review. Okay, who does OTIF affect? So OTIF affects brick and mortar and e-commerce suppliers. They just kind of started doing that with e-commerce suppliers. And funnily enough, they released the High Radius Dispute Portal to e-commerce suppliers before they did brick and mortar, but now that's available to everyone. 
 

It is not going to affect anyone who's in SAM's club, DSD, so direct to store deliveries, direct import. Walmart International are marketplace sellers. So if you guys are just selling, like 3P through Walmart. com, you're a marketplace seller, then you, you would not be impacted by this. But if you are selling 1P, then you would be impacted by this. 
 

So you're selling, you're shipping things to a DC. That is, those are the main people who are going to be impacted. So there are two different I kind of moved the slide a little bit sooner than, than we had it in the original deck, because there, whenever we're talking about OTIF fines, you need to be thinking, okay, you Am I prepaid or am I collect whenever you're considering the on time portion? 
 

So for if you guys are curious what prepaid and collect, what's the difference? Most suppliers are either one or another, but we have seen some very large suppliers who can have some parts of their business that are prepaid and some parts of it that are collect. So Prepaid is going to be where you're providing the transportation, you're managing the logistics, and you're arranging all of the terms and conditions of the freight. 
 

So you are the shipper. You are doing all of the shipping yourself. You're not relying on Walmart for it. Collect, however, is going to be when Walmart's handling all of the transportation and Walmart's That's, that's the main thing. Like, Walmart is handling the transportation, they're being the carrier, they're doing all of the shipping. 
 

You were just responsible for making sure that that product is ready at your DC at the time that you said that it was going to be. You need to confirm the shipment you need to make sure that your order is ready by the appointment time, but you are actually not responsible for making sure that that shipment is arriving at the DC on time. 
 

For collect, you're usually negotiating the terms and conditions with Walmart, and they're usually going to ask for kind of a lower cost on any of your products in order to, you know, make up basically them handling all of the shipping. Okay? So all of that is just build up for what does it mean to be on time. 
 

So the Walmart. Walmart supply chain is built in a way for just in time delivery. And if you guys are not familiar with that term, I highly suggest going and Googling it. There's a lot of information that is available out there, but the idea is that they want all of their products in their DCs when they say, when they have calculated that it needs to be so that they can be moving things. 
 

Nothing's getting congested. Nothing's getting lost. It's just a. just continuous flow of product going from location to location until it's up the store for the consumer to pick it up. So, one of the reasons why they do this is that they don't want early or late deliveries. So the on time metric is to make sure that there's no early or late deliveries in any of their DCs. 
 

So here are a couple of the expectations, who it is applicable for, the metric that it's going to be impacting, and then the goal. Across the board, the goal is now 98 percent. This was a change before, I think it was either in late 2020 or early 2021. They used to have different, oh no, it was, it was early 2020 'cause it was before the pandemic and then the pandemic hit. 
 

I remember that. They changed their metrics in order to actually go from, it was anywhere depending on what type of supplier you were, 70% up to 98%. They've now changed that where every supplier needs to be at this 98%. So. Here are the expectations. If you are prepaid only, you need to just deliver to the DCs on time. 
 

You, that's, that's your goal here. Just deliver the, the, deliver your product to the DCs on time. Deliver those POs. If you're collect collect ready, that's the metric that you're going to be measured on. You need to make sure that you're routing and confirming the POs on time and then making sure that the POs are actually ready for the carrier to pick it up when you say that they're going to be. 
 

And again, on a case by case basis, you need to be to get hitting that 98 percent on average. Let's see. Okay, so what does it mean to be in full? Kind of self explanatory here, but a PO is considering full if Walmart receives 100 percent of all of those work cases. So current goal across all departments is 98%. 
 

That's what everyone needs to be hitting. You need to just be, you know, if Walmart requested 100 cases, you need to be delivering 100 cases. That's the main metric here. Now, this is the one that usually people will get dinged on kind of three different times with AP level deductions, so a shortage, as well as an OTIF fine, and then even a SQEP fine. 
 

So this is the one that we've seen really stack up for suppliers versus on time. All right. 
 

Okay, so we also have another webinar that is Ultimate OTIF in identifying root causes. It goes really, really deep into this, you guys. So I'm going to do a pretty high level here, but if you're curious and want to learn more, that's another great edu like resource for you guys to go and dive into. 
 

We have even segmented it by both Collect and prepaid suppliers. So feel free to go and check that out because identifying the root cause is really going to be where you're going to be mitigating a lot of the fines. If the fines are, are valid, if you're receiving them because, because there is actually something wrong, that's where you're going to see the biggest improvements in the amount that OTIF is costing you. 
 

But high level here is what we're going to dive into. So what can lower your score? We have two examples here for each of the different kind of items that you might be getting dinged on. So prepaid on time, an example is like you've shipped the cases early or late or without an appointment. Or, and this is defined by the MABD delivery window, which we'll get here in a second. 
 

We have collect ready, so that an example of this is like the shipment is not confirmed by 4 p. m. The day after the PO is sent, so you need to be, you need to be confirming those. Or if the order is not ready for pickup by the appointment time in full, that's going to be when a recruiter faces. 
 

Fewer cases arrived than what was ordered, or no cases arrived at all. We've actually seen that sometimes maybe you're like, I did ship all of my items, and Walmart is saying that they didn't receive anything. What is happening? That might be a Code 25, which there's a, an article on, on SupplierWiki that can dive into more of that, but the idea is that you might have shipped those items but invoiced too soon.

So Walmart usually has about a five day window from whenever you you send that invoice that they're looking for the items and if they don't receive the items within five days of that invoice they would be like, hey, didn't receive this, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna send over a deduction Code 25 saying that it was billed. 
 

invoice billed but not shipped. So we've seen that a lot. Usually that's pretty easy to correct by just adjusting your EDI invoicing time to be within five days after the MABD date on your, your PO. So you might be shipping in full and this could just be kind of a a glitch in Walmart's system or just a tiny issue. 
 

Okay, how to be in full. So we listed a couple of things in here on, on what you can be doing, but high level what you're going to need to do is monitor your forecasts, make sure that your forecasts are accurate, create supply and demand plans, and then update that forecast and plans as is needed. Clearly marking packaging This sounds so silly, but we see a lot of time that people will actually get marked on in full, even though they shipped all of the product because they have like products and like but not the same products and very similar packaging. 
 

And so at the DC is what people are doing with the products. The people who are receiving any of the packages are doing is that they're just going and quickly doing a scan. And if they cannot see that there are different packages, different items separated out, they might just count that as like items. 
 

So you'll see that come over as a shortage on your end or as not in full, but then there'll be an overage on another product. And usually that's just a receiving error. So check. Check that out. One thing that we've heard suggested a lot, which I know that some suppliers are like, that is not feasible for me, but if it is either changing your packaging for, you know, if you have products in different colors or different styles that look very similar, changing it so that it's clearly, clearly notated on the package or even putting stickers on the outside of packages whenever you're shipping it, to denote like they are different. 
 

So like a red sticker for this type, blue sticker for this type, just a little dot that can kind of help with some of the receiving errors making sure your item setup is correct stuff like that. Lastly, cancel POs when not fulfilling and then use a Walmart Reason Code when possible. So a Walmart Reason Code, what we mean by that is whenever you're canceling a PO, there's either a supplier, Fault Reason Code or Walmart Fault Reason Code. 
 

Don't just use a Walmart Reason Code if it is your fault that you're canceling that PO. Walmart will go and check that and deny it and still charge you the OTIF fine. But if it is a Walmart, Walmart's fault then try to use that and that will remove it from your in full metric. And we have a list of those Reason Codes somewhere too, so I think Peter can It might be in that guide that Peter just shared. 
 

Okay, so how to be prepared on time and how to be collect ready. I'm moving a little slow today, so I'm going to kick it up, but for Prepaid on time, you're going to need to know your delivery window. You need to communicate your requirements and expectations with third parties. This is very important whenever you're talking to your carriers and also holding them accountable. 
 

Your carrier is accountable whenever you are, they are kind of missing the mark there. Create a process for delivering on time. Use Data to evaluate each third party, really, really important if it is a valid find, like you are just not delivering on time. And then share those performance updates and identify any gaps that you might be experiencing, especially with those carriers, with your partners. 
 

Okay, how to be collect ready. So, one thing that you really need to make sure that you're doing is the day after the PO has been sent at 4 p. m. Central Standard Time, you need to confirm those shipments. So go and confirm those shipments. One thing we hear a lot of is that, Hey, SupplyPike, I confirmed my shipment, I did everything, my product is ready, but the truck didn't show up. 
 

What do I do? You need to actually go and submit a Transportation Portal Ticket. Each day that that truck does not show up. So if that truck doesn't show up for three days in a row, you need to be going submitting a ticket every day. So three times, I know that that's kind of a hassle, but at the end of the day, that's going to allow for you to actually go and fight any fines that might, Walmart might be sending to you that are invalid. 
 

The Supplier Closing Template. So this is a quarterly kind of template, it's, it's a document that you can send as a supplier to alert Walmart of the days that you're going to be closed, so that orders can either be transmitted early or after that. We've seen sometimes that suppliers are receiving Like a truck comes to pick up their stuff or orders come in and they're not able to confirm it because, you know, they were out on holiday or they were closed a certain day. 
 

So you need to be sending that and adjusting it so that Walmart knows whenever your, your business is going to be closed. A big part of this. is just communicating with your art, your replenishment manager. That's what an RM is for Walmart. So making sure that you're talking to them. If you're like, Hey, I'm really experiencing this issue with the carriers, you're coming to pick up my stuff. 
 

Is there anything that you can do to help me? Proactive communication is going to be kind of your best friend here. Now, I know that sometimes people at Walmart, maybe your merchant or your RM, may not be super responsive to the emails that you're sending. That's okay as long as you are sending those emails. 
 

Even if you get discouraged by, you know, hey they're not responding to me or they're not, they're not It doesn't even look like they're looking at it. That documentation, sending it to your Walmart team, is going to be really important later on in case you are receiving fines. So just send it to them, even if they don't respond, you know, they're not going to respond. 
 

Send it to them so they're at least have it in their inbox that you can reference later and let them know, you know, I did notify you of this problem. Okay, so here are the updated MABD windows and MABD stands for must arrive by date. So this is kind of the, yep, the dates that you need to, you need to follow. 
 

Here's the helpful little chart in order to, you know, decide which MABD date that you need to be using. So if you are a live, so you were just getting that product to the DC and they're unloading it and then your, your truck is going away. And this is just for prepaid, by the way, there's no change. 
 

That window is just what your MABD states on your, And your documents, but if you're a drop trailer, so you're actually going to the DC and you're just dropping the trailer off and they are going to go and pick it up, depending on which network you're using. So which DC that you are actually shipping that product to and then which mode that you are using. 
 

So if you're. All modes for this network versus truckload for these networks, then these are the MABD windows that you need to follow. And really quick, so, I know that we use a lot of acronyms on here, so GDC is Grocery Distribution Center. Each, this is HVDC, man, I'm going to get all tongue tied, but HVDC is going to be High Velocity DC. 
 

ACC is Automated Consolidation Center. FC is going to be Fulfillment Center. FDC is Fashion, Fashion DC. I think I got all of them. Okay, perfect. And then the difference between a truckload and an LTL. So truckload means that you're shipping a full truck. LTL means you're shipping less than a truck and you're usually using a consolidator in order to ship that. 
 

Peter, do we have a question? 
 

[00:26:01] Peter Spaulding: Yeah, we've got a few questions around MABDs and timing and stuff as, as would be expected. One is in the chat, from Ralph. I'm a collective vendor and mostly ship small parcel. Sometimes the load p slash u up start slash end date and MABD date are the same when I check routing status. 
 

Will I be dinged if I ship before I get the load ID to meet the MABD date? 
 

[00:26:30] Melodie Hays: Will I be dinged Hold on, let me, let me read this back.

I wonder if this might be an issue with your You might want to do, Ralph, a, it's a lead time audit. And I believe that we might have a document somewhere that you can do that. So it might be just some confusion. On that this may be something that I take to the team and get some more information, Ralph on for you. 
 

Peter, if you wouldn't mind, mine may be wrong. Roping in Ryan to help with this one. Yeah, I'm not sure.  
 

[00:27:11] Peter Spaulding: We've got another question here, also about MABD or kind of tangentially connected to it. We've been getting a lot of OTIF fines for SupplierShipPoint. On orders that Walmart has asked us to update MABDs on, so our routing looks like it was late, but really it had been on time, and then we have to cancel the original routing, update the MABD, and resubmit routing confirmation. 
 

Do you have any advice on how we can reduce these fines? 
 

[00:27:44] Melodie Hays: So our routing looks like it was late, but really it was on time, and we have to cancel and resubmit. That is another great question. I am not sure. Let's Let's ask Ryan on both of these if you don't mind, and then we can kind of get back to you guys. 
 

I haven't, I haven't heard about either of these before, which is actually kind of exciting because sometimes we question, you know, it's always exciting or kind of scary. Yeah. Yeah, let's ask and see, and we'll, we'll get back to you guys on that one. Awesome. Okay, we got 30 minutes left. I'm going to kick it up. 
 

Okay, so like we talked about before the difference between prepaid and collect. So prepaid, you're shipping. So if you're prepaid and you're dealing with third, third party carriers and 3PLs, so third party logistics companies, then this is how you're going to kind of track the carrier performance. 
 

And we highly suggest you, you do this for all of the carriers that you have. So you can actually pull the carrier name column from your OTIP data and then create on time percentage scores for each of these carriers. And this is kind of the formula that you're going to be using. This is the same formula that Walmart is going to be using to measure your on time performance. 
 

And so it's important for you to be doing it for your carrier's performance. So you're taking the number of on time cases and then you're just dividing that. by the number of prepaid early cases, plus prepaid late cases, plus prepaid unscheduled cases, but plus prepaid, on time cases. So basically all of the cases that you, you've, you've sent, and then that will come out with a percentage. 
 

And if you take that, then I would share each of those scores as well as those non compliant POs with your carriers and 3PLs on a regular basis. Monthly, quarterly, or right as they happen, whatever works best for you and your business depending on your shipping volume. You can actually multiply your 3 percent supplier affected cost of goods sold to, to show the potential fine impact for each of those carriers. 
 

And then Ask for the reasons on why those performance issues are happening, hold them accountable, and then try to get those scores improved. If you can improve those scores over time, you are going to be paying less money. We have seen with a few suppliers that they have been able to actually pass these fines on to their carrier. 
 

That is fairly rare. If that's something that you feel like you have the negotiating power to do, go to your carrier and say like, this is the amount of money that you, you were costing me. Please feel free to do that, but usually an easier ask is just asking for a performance. Put them on a PIP. Put your carriers on a PIP if they're costing you a lot of money and hold them accountable. 
 

And if they, you know, are impacting your business a lot, then it, you know, maybe it's time to consider another carrier. Okay, so questions to ask about your supply chain. You have a question, Peter? 
 

[00:30:49] Peter Spaulding: No, I don't. Sorry, that was an accident. 
 

[00:30:52] Melodie Hays: Questions to ask about your supply chain. Is the carrier primary late or early? 
 

So are they getting things there too late? Or are they just, you know, getting things there quicker than they need to be? Did the carrier pick up the order with enough time to deliver it? Was the appointment scheduled too late or early? Did the carrier miss the appointment or was there anything else that happened? 
 

You know, hurricanes, hurricanes have impacted shipments before and usually that's an easy thing to actually go to Walmart and say like, Hey, here's the news article of, of a hurricane going through this area. And that's the reason why my shipment is late and usually the wave that finds. Okay, Collect. 
 

So Collect is going to be again whenever Walmart is handling the transportation, you're negotiating the terms with Walmart, and then you are not responsible for making sure that the items are at the DC on time, but you do need to make sure that the appointment is ready. So, oh, here's the SuppliershipPoint stuff. 
 

Maybe this, this will help. So for supplier ship point cases, review if the tickets are submitted. If not, share the list of non compliant POs and ask why the POs were not ready or why the ticket was not submitted. So this is going to be with like your third party warehouses. Anna, maybe this won't answer your question, but, going to your warehouse or any of the third party warehouses that you have and just saying like, hey, you know, I, I see that I have all of these, these POs that are not, were not ready on time. 
 

Can you talk to me about why they were not ready on time? What was the issue? For not in full cases that were cancelled share the POs and ask the third party to review and then share the documentation related to the shipping of those cases. So, again, for any issues that you're having, if it's not an on time issue, if it's a full time issue, an in full issue, just go to your third party warehouse and ask, you know, what is happening around these shipments? 
 

Did I not have enough product? Or was it you guys were not able to find the product? Kind of dig down in the root cause of that. So questions to ask is the warehouse or vendor having difficulty picking and packing order? Is it something about how you were shipping the products that they are needing to, like, break things down before they can actually get it ready? 
 

Are there any issues with the supply at that particular place? So origin, you know, do you just not have enough product there for them to actually ship it? Is the origin having issues with the carrier's no shows? So if you are your own, you know, warehouse I'm sure that you've seen the issues where sometimes Walmart trucks just don't show up. 
 

Is that what is happening here, or are they not getting the products ready? Are the tickets being submitted if Walmart's transportation isn't arriving on time? So like I mentioned before, you need to submit a ticket every day if the Walmart doesn't show up. Walmart truck does not show up. And then are you conforming, confirming shipments on time, even if it's the weekend? 
 

If you do not want to confirm shipments on the weekend, just submit that that form that we talked about here a little while ago, the closing form, and just let them know whenever you, you are closed, your business is closed, and then they shouldn't be And then it's asking for you to confirm orders there. 
 

Okay, one thing to consider is Walmart's new Collect Pickup program. If you guys are not familiar with this, it happened last August. They, they announced that they were going to be doing this. So the new charges they have is a pickup charge. Fuel surcharge. So the pickup charge is going to be anytime that Walmart Freight is actually picking up any shipped items. 
 

And then the dollar amount is actually going to be the cost of goods sold and determined by the items department every month. So that is very confusing. I know that's very confusing. We have another article on this that can kind of break that down. But the fuel surcharge is going to be based on the distance to deliver the products plus the factor of the current gas prices. 
 

So they're actually using a company called BreakthroughFuel, you can go and google them, but it's a third party company that is actually just kind of gauging the cost with a whole lot of data. So that is what they're going to be charging you if you are collect. From what I've seen, it is not, not a super heavy charge for most suppliers, but you know, this is still fairly new, so that, that may change in time. 
 

A lot of we've seen a lot of suppliers actually move from collect to prepaid because of being afraid of this new program. If that is something that you decide to do, you know, you want to take on the risk of getting charged with on time charges versus not having to pay for this. You know, that, that, that is something that your business may consider is, you know, what is the, the pros and cons? 
 

What is the cost analysis of this program versus, you know, more risk in our supply chain if we do not deliver things on time? All right, so now the fun part of what you guys have, have come here to see. So disputing OTIF fines. So, Walmart did change their OTIF statement in January of last year. So this was a very, very small just kind of bullet point almost in one of their documentation where they had updated from before they would say that OTIF fines are not disputable. 
 

There was not an official process. They were very clear. They're not disputable, and most suppliers actually had to go through their buyer if they wanted to get any of their fines reversed, but in January of last year, they actually added this tiny, this is it, two sentences on how you can actually go and dispute OTIF charges through High Radius. 
 

So OTIF fines are now disputable after being invoiced, but the process is completely undefined. So that's just something we want to, you know. Say here in the beginning, all the information that we're going to go over here in a second is just our experience with working with hundreds of different suppliers on kind of trial and error. 
 

You know, what is working, what is not working. And that's how we've kind of developed this. So as more information comes out from Walmart, we'll be updating this based off of Walmart's preference, but this is based off of trial and error with lots of different suppliers. Okay, so OTIP cadence fines can be disputed in a one month batch. 
 

You have one month. to dispute them but you have, oh sorry, you have a one month batch, you can dispute one month worth of fines, but you have a 13 month window to actually go and dispute those fines. So you have 13 months from the last time from when the OTIF fine was just, was given to you to actually go and dispute them, and then OTIF data is always going to be one to two weeks behind, so you need to kind of wait one to two weeks after that fine is issued to you to kind of see how everything clears out in your data. 
 

So, one note is, first time suppliers have a three month grace period so if you are a new supplier, you're getting into Walmart, you have three months where actually OTIF fines are waived. If you are a new supplier, I highly, highly suggest that you go and you start digging through all of your, your OTIF fines before that three month grace period is up. 
 

You know, the best, best way to address OTIF fines is not disputing them because there's not an official process, but actually going to the root cause and fixing any invalid or any valid fines that you might be receiving. Now, Walmart isn't perfect, we all know that, so you, even if you fix their supply chain, have a perfect supply chain, you're doing everything right, they still might be issuing you some Some of these that are invalid just because their supply chain is not perfect. 
 

So that's what the rest of this process here is for, is any of those invalid finds that you might be experiencing. So the OTIF find process. This is what we suggest, OTIF fines can still be disputed with your buyer. One thing that we say is every buyer is different, and since it's not an official process, you know, maybe you have one buyer who is really great to work with and really understanding and will help you dispute these, but other buyers may not be as accepting of that. 
 

So your mileage may vary is something that Stacy Tan, one of our other hosts, says fairly often. That is very much the case here for OTIF fines. So, they can be disputed with the buyer before the invoice. So, before you are actually charged, the fee, but disputing in high radius is actually done after the invoice. 
 

So you've received the invoice. It hasn't necessarily gotten off of your check, but you've, you've gotten the invoice for it. And that's whenever you can actually go and dispute in high radius, you can't do it before. Okay. So this is a fun little. fun little flowchart that we made in order to kind of help you work through best practices in order to actually go and dispute this. 
 

You can do both. So you can try to go and dispute through your buyer and if they don't respond to you or they say I can't help you with that, you then can go to High Radius. So. What we suggest is that on a monthly basis start with your buyer if the fine hasn't hit your scorecard and then dispute on high radius if the fine does get issued. 
 

So let's dive into that. So talk to your buyer before the projected fine is invoiced. So you have basically about two weeks, two weeks after all of your, your data has come in before the invoice is actually issued. So you have two weeks to go and prove your case. So you're checking your OTIF scorecard weekly. 
 

You see on your OTIF scorecard that there's a projected fine detected. You need to start communicating with your buyer and gathering all of that documentation. So your Your OTIF scorecard will actually not reflect the fines if your buyer approves the dispute, so you won't ever receive an invoice for that. 
 

Your, your buyer will just kind of do some magic in the background and get that, get that waived off. This is the the kind of charging schedule, and, I think, do we have an updated one of this, Peter? 
 

[00:41:20] Peter Spaulding: Not, not to the best of my knowledge. That was a question that we had is Oh, I'm sorry. I was thinking about there. I was thinking about CollectPickup program. We have a calendar that we release every year that has these dates on it that I can, I can link in here real quick too. 
 

[00:41:40] Melodie Hays: Yeah, that'd be super helpful because I'm realizing some of these are a little bit later. 
 

So yeah, go check that out. That, that calendar will have all of the links for you. But OTF finds are usually issued around five weeks after the month's end. So it's usually whenever you can go and see it. There are some dates that you can go and check out and you need to be looking at the Walmart weeks, but Peter will link to you in the calendar. 
 

I thought we had that, so I'm glad we do. But you can go and get more updated information there. Okay. So your buyer dispute format, you're like, you're like, Melodie, okay, I'm I'm ready to dispute with my buyer. What do I need to do? You need to email them. Send your PO numbers, send any other supporting documentation. 
 

Also, be very detailed in the reason why you actually want to recover that money, and then tell them how much money that you actually want to be waived in fines. There are some buyers who actually have templates that they prefer for their suppliers to use, and It doesn't hurt to just email them and be like, you know, this, I've provided you with all of this information. 
 

If they want you to use a certain format, they can always kick it back to you and say, hey, can you actually put it in this spreadsheet or do it in this way? But this is a good starting point for you if you're wanting to email your buyer. I will say sometimes for newer suppliers or some suppliers, I've heard them be nervous emailing their buyer for something like this. 
 

I would not. would not reach out to your buyer if it's low, low amounts, that it's not having a big financial impact on your business. And I would do it fairly rarely. I would not do it for every OTIF fine that you're receiving unless it's a big, big problem that again is having a big financial impact on your business or even a medium sized impact on your business. 
 

I think you can also approach it from a way of saying like, hey, buyer, merchant, I. I have all of these fees and this is the impact that it's doing for my cost that I'm even, you know, passing on to you. As someone who, who has a lot of, you know, merchant and buyer friends and relatives I know that they, they can be understanding as long as you're approaching it from, hey, look, this is the impact that it's having on my business. 
 

Not They are fairly understanding, but not every buyer will be that way. So just something to keep in mind. Okay, OTIF prod assess in high radius. So even if a fine is distributed in high radius, the OTIF scorecard will not change. That is a difference between if you actually go and have it waived with your buyer earlier on. 
 

And then Walmart is actually going to create a credit memo. So that's going to be kind of that, that invoice as well, that is going to be visible in high radius. I do see this question come from Tom Taylor. What are valid reasons that a buyer would consider to waive an OTIF charge? So what I've seen with working with suppliers or talking to my merchant, merchant friends is, if, you know, Walmart really messed up, if, or it's a, just a big problem. 
 

I'm trying to think of a very specific example without, sharing any information that I shouldn't, but, Like a hurricane came through or a DC burnt down. Going to your buyer and saying like, you know, there was no way for me to deliver this product. And I still received a no tif fine. Usually the buyer is fairly understanding with that COVID. 
 

We had a supplier here at SupplyPike whose business was over in China and their factory got, got taken over by the Chinese government to produce masks. So. You know, there's situations like that where you can just go and talk to your buyer and they will actually go and waive that charge for you. 
 

Now, if it's a mistake that you guys, that suppliers, it's a valid OTIF charge that you have received and you are not a new supplier, you've been doing this for a while, a buyer usually is not going to waive that. I have heard that from a few buyers where they they've received something from a supplier who's been in the industry for 30 years and the supplier says, hey, I received this OTIF fine and I didn't realize that I needed to follow these, these, these rules, that this was something that I needed to do. 
 

The buyer usually is not going to, to waive those fines. Is there anything you want to add, Peter? 
 

[00:46:16] Peter Spaulding: Yeah, I was just going to say I've done more work on this in the TARGET side of things, but TARGET has a their system kind of works similarly, where whenever there are extenuating circumstances at a DC, like a fire or something like that, they'll try to kind of communicate that across. 
 

their systems so that these suppliers don't get hit with compliance fines, but it's something that really happens more on the supplier buyer level. So that is I think similar there too. In an ideal world, it would be something that the retailer could kind of just, like, deal with on their own, but I think it's, it has to kind of happen more at this level, at least for the meanwhile. 
 

[00:46:58] Melodie Hays: Yeah. I I've even seen, I believe it was Hurricane Laura. Gosh, I can't remember when that was, whenever Walmart just went ahead and proactively waived all OTIF fines. So there might be some things like that, or even in like a tropical storm, maybe it doesn't make national news, but it really disrupts your supply chain. 
 

You. You can go to your buy with that information, and usually those are going to be the ones that they actually go and waive. I'm going to We got 10 minutes. Okay, so what we know about High Radius. So High Radius is a customer facing tool that just provides visibility into accounts receivable, balances, and monitors what is due or payable to Walmart. 
 

So this is a third party system, they, that you can go and view all of your, AR balances. and actually go and dispute it. So anything that you dispute is actually going to be sent to dispute associates. So they're going to, there's a human who is going to be going and reviewing kind of your case for each dispute that you send. 
 

And then any feedback or backup is going to be provided to your email to the person who created that dispute. So one thing that I'll say is that sometimes, you know, people leave the company. If someone has created. a dispute, that email is going to be sent into the person who's left the company. So it's, it's helpful sometimes, even though the term around, around time is quicker, less than a month, a lot quicker than AP deductions. 
 

I don't know if you guys have seen the current, kind of cadence that they're, they're getting to each of the deductions, it's somehow like six months, nine months, even though it's quicker, it might be helpful to just forward all of those emails from someone who left the company to someone else so that you can monitor any of that backup or feedback that's being provided. 
 

Because if you do not respond to that you do not provide any backup or provide any requests, then you're going to kind of lose that opportunity to recover that money. So, just in general, forward it to another email if someone loses, who's, someone leaves the company before you lose that information. 
 

All right, so the high radius dispute format. Ralph, I see your question. Is there additional cost to access High Radius? There is not. So you can go, if you do not have an account there is a process for you to go and request one that I think Peter should be able to send to you. I believe it's an email that you go and email and say, hey, I just need access to this and they can provide that for you. 
 

But there's not an additional cost. This is just part of your, something that Walmart provides to their, their vendors. Okay, so High Radius Dispute Format. There, you need to send, you know, just like with the buyer, any of the PO numbers that you're disputing, the item numbers. This is going to be really helpful for in full. 
 

If you guys are familiar with the AP, AP deduction process, you're going to be kind of doing the same. Same dispute process that you would for any shortage AP related deductions. So those item numbers, those PO numbers, any of the supporting documentation, and then a detailed dispute reasoning to back up that dispute. 
 

Supporting documentation, we might have that on one of the next. Yes, I think we do. Perfect. Well, we'll go over that in the next slide. So charge type. So what type of charge are you receiving? Is it the end full, collect ready, prepaid on time? And then the amount that you actually want to be requested to pay back. 
 

We've actually seen people request lower amounts than what they actually get paid back on, which is fine. That's very different than AP level deductions. But for OTIF, sometimes they will get paid back more than what they've actually requested. If Walmart finds out that it is an error, they will go and Give you extra free money, which, which is sometimes nice. 
 

Okay, Additional Helpful Dispute Documents. So anything, this is what we request or recommend for you guys to send. So that's going to be screenshots, documentation, meaning like anything from RetailLink that you might be able to pull to prove your point, or anything from your carriers even. So signed bill of ladings, proof of deliveries, those tickets, etc. 
 

You know, the actual tickets that you sent, if it's like a carrier or collect ready issue, if you submit those Walmart transportation tickets, you can go and submit that as documentation, any research that you've done, and then communication with your Walmart partners. So remember before when I was talking about Email your RM or email your buyer anytime there's an issue that you see, even if they're not going to respond to you, you can go and attach that where you've actually said, you know, hey, look, I emailed my buyer on this date, and this is all of the information I sent. 
 

You can email that to them. It's even better if your, your RM or your buyer emails you back, but at least you can show that you've tried to communicate an issue and get those Okay, we did it. We have five minutes left, you guys. 
 

[00:52:13] Peter Spaulding: We've got a lot of questions, so try to get them all in right now if you have any that are kind of still lingering. 
 

A few of the questions about MABDs we've received a lot of helpful information from from Ryan, from one of our OTIF experts, that I will just kind of share by email because I think it'll be helpful to send some attachments to that too. So for those of you who asked about that, I will, I'll reach out, if I haven't already in the chat or in the Q&A. 
 

But some of these questions here in the chat, we can get to. Is an STC fine and OTIF fine? I can't figure out why we are getting these. I'm not familiar with, what an STC fine is. Are you Melodie? 
 

[00:53:01] Melodie Hays: Yeah, let I think I might know what it is, but let me double check here real quick. Nope, I actually do not. 
 

STC fine. Hmm. Yeah, let's, let's ask Ryan on that one as well. So many new questions today. I haven't, I haven't heard of these. I was thinking it was 
 

[00:53:19] Peter Spaulding: Cynthia, if you if you can explain to us what that stands for, if you know that would, be helpful as well. But we have a, a product related question about if High Radius is through, SupplyPike. 
 

If you're currently a SupplyPike customer for Walmart, is High Radius a part of the service received from you? It's not. But SupplyPike will send, disputing documentation and everything through High Radius in that process. So it's not it's not a part of us, but we're kind of, our product is designed to be integrated into it. 
 

Much in the same way with APDP, that's how we dispute invalid AP deductions. SupplyPike. Our software is integrated to be communicable with that platform, but there isn't like a partnership or anything like that going on there. Okay, great. Yeah, Cynthia just kind of updated saying she does not know what STC stands for. 
 

So I'll look into that a little bit more too. Try to get down to the bottom of that. I think we had another question in here that I'm forgetting. If not, we can go into our product preview since we're running a little bit low on time as well. Oh, where can we see changes to the monthly collect pickup program charges by department? 
 

Are you familiar with that, with that, Melodie? 
 

[00:54:54] Melodie Hays: Sorry, up on, I think I might have an answer in STC as well. Can you repeat the question? 
 

[00:55:00] Peter Spaulding: Yes updates to the so sorry, I lost it here. Where can we see changes to the monthly CPP charges by department, the collect pickup program? 
 

[00:55:11] Melodie Hays: Yes, I believe that that is information that your buyer should be sending to you, And if not, there is actually a, I think there is a document that we can send to you as well. 
 

Maybe that's something that we can follow up with. Yeah, so the, it looks like, an STC is very similar to an SLC, which means that the quantities on the document are very unlikely to be counted as valid proof when disputing. So Walmart wants to reject, they reject that dispute, And they don't want you to ship that way. 
 

So yeah, I think we can follow up with some, so it's shipper load and count is kind of the issue there, which we do have additional information on, so we can. 
 

[00:56:06] Peter Spaulding: I'll attach that article here real quick before we. Before we go, SLC is a real beast. Yeah, 
 

[00:56:18] Melodie Hays: I was thinking it was SLC, but, I haven't seen STC, so, interesting. 
 

Okay, let's, oh, we're right at time. Cool. Okay, so hopefully that was helpful for you guys. Please, please, if I was not able to answer all of your questions, These ones were new for me today. I haven't seen these before. So feel free to email us. Our emails will be here in a second and we can connect you to someone who, who has a little bit more expertise in this area. 
 

But, if you guys are curious or you want to please join our SupplierWiki supplier communities. So these are communities that we've just created. They're launched. That, we are trying out to see if we can provide more of a Select help inside of the supplier community to these different kind of interests. 
 

If you're curious or like, hey, I would love a food and beverage Walmart group or something like that, we would love to create another community to address any of the questions that you have. So you get to choose how you interact with this group. If it's in person, virtually, or group chat, Well, there will be more information to come, but we would love to see you guys. 
 

You can go to SupplierWiki.com and then over on the side, there will just be the different communities. Go join it. We would love to talk to you guys and, and interact with you. Oh, I went too fast. And these are our emails. Peter also just sent it in the chat. Feel free to email us. We'll, if we don't know the answer, we'll connect you to someone who does. 
 

All right, so I'm going to switch screens really here. This is where you guys jump off. Thank you so much for joining us today. Hopefully this was helpful for you. I'm going to now jump into our product that helps with compliance and kind of guide you guys through that. Let me share my screen. Okay, everyone see that? 
 

Yeah, all right. So this is our product, our product that helps with Walmart compliance. So this, even though for our deduction product, we currently help with multiple different retailers, this one is very focused on Walmart, specifically Walmart's Compliance program is very complicated as we've seen here today in today's webinar. 
 

So we've developed a tool in order to help identify root cause issues a lot easier, as well as actually go and doing that dispute process with high radius a lot easier. So here we can see some of the basic information that you can also see in your OTIF scorecard inside of Walmart. There's some extra fun things in here that just breaks it down and makes it a little bit, easier to understand and access, you know, where your business is right now. 
 

But the, the true benefit of using this software is going to be diving into those different, analysis. So you can hold, hold your carriers, hold your warehouses accountable for any of the issues that you're facing. So, Let's actually dive into the carriers here. So this analysis does all of that stuff that I was talking about before as kind of a best practice. 
 

Again, you can do that yourself. You can pull the information, you can calculate your on time performance if you're a prepaid supplier, and this just makes it a little bit easier so you're not having to pull that information every week and do that calculation yourself. So here you can actually go and see Great Plains Transport Inc. 
 

69 percent of the time that they're actually late. And only 30 percent of the time that they're on fine you can see that as a percentage or a volume. So, and then from there, you can actually go and see like, okay, what is my in full for each of these carriers? This allows for you to go and again, talk to your carriers about what is, what is going on? 
 

What should, what do you? What is your plan to address the issues that you're facing? A helpful tool. You can do that for carriers, origins, departments, destinations items. That can even be a helpful thing. Is there a specific item that is always coming back that's not in full? You know, why is that? 
 

Dive into the root cause, come up with a plan for it, different vendor numbers, and then you can even actually create your own segment. So if there's a very unique way that you look at your business, you can dive into all of those reports and actually get a more granular understanding of that. There's even a helpful thing where you can download all of the information that is on this page, and that's something that you can go and provide to your carrier and say, hey, these are all of the POs that I've actually been impacted by. 
 

Okay, so here is looking at all of your purchase orders. So you can look, before you're looking at analyzing kind of all of the information on the different segments that your business might have when dealing with OTIF charges, this is looking at a A purchase order by purchase order basis. So if you're curious, I'm like, man, this one purchase order, I received a lot of fines on it. 
 

Let's go and dive in. You can click on it and see what actually happened to that specific order and get a better understanding of you know. everything from prepaid on time to in full, what kind of went on, download that. This is something that will be really helpful whenever you're talking to your buyer. 
 

Okay, I'm, I'm at time for this little demo, but this is, this is the main, the main value that we feel like we can provide here at SupplyPike. Actually automating a lot of that dispute. Portion for OTIF. So what this looks like is you see one dispute come through, you can see that you've, this person has actually gone in through SupplyPike system, submitted a dispute through HighRadius, and you can see all of the information on it. 
 

But how you go about doing this. Go over here is selecting all of the disputes that you have all of the POs that you have received that have an issue. And then you can actually go and click this button here and that's going to submit a dispute to High Radius for you with all of the documentation that you need. 
 

And you don't have to do any of the research. You don't have to do any of the backfill. All of that's going to be provided here for you. So it makes it way easier for you to go and provide all of that documentation that we were talking about earlier in today's webinar. with just a couple of clicks. 
 

And then at the end, you can go and view it here and see, okay, has this been accepted? What's happened with this order? And get a better understanding of what's going on. You can even see any of the information that comes back from that feedback that is provided. So that's the high level of OTIF Radar. 
 

Hopefully that's helpful for you guys. If you want a more in depth demo there is so much more to this tool than what I've gone over in six minutes. We would be happy to connect you with one of our, our, our account managers or, or AEs in order to kind of help you, guide you through this process. 
 

But do we have any other questions, Peter, before we jump off? 
 

[01:03:39] Peter Spaulding: We don't have any SupplyPike OTIF radar related questions right now. So just kind of some old ones and I think most of them have kind of left the webinar already. So I think that does it for us. 
 

[01:03:52] Melodie Hays: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, you guys. 
 

I hope you have a fantastic rest of your May the 4th and hopefully we'll see you guys again soon.