How To Successfully Dispute Walmart AP Deductions 

[00:00:00] Peter: AP deductions at Walmart. This is our bread and butter. This is how we got started. We love AP deductions. I am Peter. This is Allie. If you've never been on one of these before, we're now on most of these, I think. So you're probably tired of hearing our voices a little bit. but we are on the SupplierWiki team. 
 

We do content creation. We come up with the webinars and the articles and all of that. so if there's anything you'd like to learn about, let us know, a little more about that. our website, supplierwiki.supplypike.com. we do, lots of different forms of content for, educational content for CCP G suppliers. not just in Walmart, but in a lot of other major retailers. Yes, we have things like ebooks and cheat sheets that you can that you can download that you can keep as a resource or as a reference or a training tool or something like that as well. 
 

And then of course we have webinars like this one and lots of articles. We've got a pretty big library of articles on SupplierWiki. And, check it out. And we are a part of SupplyPike. SupplyPike is now a part of SPS Commerce, but we haven't started talking about that too much yet. but SupplyPike basically does what we're talking about today with AP deductions. 
 

it's a company that helps automate a lot of the validation process for disputes or for, deductions and helps to automate disputes, pretty effectively. These are some of the brands that we're working with and, but yeah, we're across a lot of different product categories as well. So that gives us a pretty broad range of the supplier experience. 
 

And this is one of my favorite things about being on the SupplierWiki team is just that. We interact with a lot of different kinds of suppliers. So we, have a lot of people on the webinars who are at, the really massive enterprise companies and a lot of people who are, doing their own thing, starting their own business and have made it into Walmart or, some other major retailer and are trying to figure out the, the deduction side of things. 
 

So that's supplied bikes area. Supplied bike has expanded a lot. into many other forms of revenue loss, but it is, what we're talking about today is very germane to, SupplyPike's main, targeted area. But yeah, that's SupplyPike, and we get these questions pretty often, so you don't need to be taking crazy notes, because you'll be getting a copy of the slide deck. 
 

If there's anything that Allie says, that isn't on the slide or whatever, then you may want to take note of that, but you will be getting a copy of the slide deck in three to four business days. And we also publish our webinars. on YouTube, and those can be accessed through SupplierWiki as well. so you can keep an eye out for those. 
 

And then we have, two main forms of communication in these webinars. The chat, which is, where we were talking about our creepy crawly fears earlier. And then the Q&A tab is the more formal kind of questions, process for us that helps us Process questions. chat is, the chat is more for kind of public interaction. 
 

If, you're asking, if you're answering a question that we ask, that's a good place for that. but if you have a more formal kind of business question, you can put that in the Q&A and then we can tee that up, at the end. Speaking of, what we're going to be going through today is a little bit of news, and we've got a fun trivia question to start things out. 
 

I've never done a poll in a webinar before, so hopefully I don't screw it up, but, yeah, that'll be in the form of a poll, so that's exciting. And then we're going to do high level AP deductions, we're going to do the really important deduction codes, the ones that you're probably seeing a lot of. that's what we'll be covering in that section, and then of course, we'll be talking about how to dispute an APDP before our Q&A at the end. 
 

And I think I'll do this. The trivia question of the day is What was Sam Walton's first Walmart store called? Okay, so we realized that it's not just the first store ever, but it's the first actual Walmart one, and I will post this here. Okay, so you can go ahead and answer on the screen if you can see it. 
 

Can you see it? Okay, good. 
 

[00:04:50] Allie: I can tell that you are a teacher, Peter, at heart because you're really explaining the question and you're trying to not stump the students. 
 

[00:04:59] Peter: I love it. all of the answers have Walmart in it, so I don't think I was giving anything away. But I'll wait two more seconds if anyone wants to get a guess in before we reveal it. 
 

Alrighty, and I think you guys can see the results now. We had most people thought Walton's Market, the second most was Walton's Discount Mart, and then the third was Walmart Discount City, which I'm pretty sure is the correct answer, right?  
 

[00:05:34] Allie: Yeah, Walmart Discount City. So I didn't write this question, neither did Peter. 
 

But we were quizzing ourselves before and we both got it wrong because this is his 1962 store, the first Walmart store, not the first Walton store. So as of someone who grew up in northwest Arkansas, I was a little salty that I got that wrong. 
 

[00:05:57] Peter: Walmart, discount City is potentially the worst sounding one out of all of them too. 
 

[00:06:01] Allie: I don't, Hey, he workshopped it. He workshopped it. It be, it became what it is and it's great. So yeah. thank you guys for playing along. that was fun. and we'll go ahead. Thank you, Peter, for leading our trivia question and introducing us today. We'll get into some of the news today. So if this is your first time to this particular type of webinar, this is following more of the format of our Vendorville newsletter. 
 

So we're adding some new stuff and then we're getting into the tips and the strategies that are most effective and most asked for among suppliers. I'll just go through these briefly, and please go ahead and share if there's a news story that you're following today as a supplier. We'd love to talk about it. 
 

Some of the ones I don't have on here, I know some of our Home Depot suppliers have been talking about the fact that the Home Depot teams, especially the HQ teams, are going to be serving in stores. I believe it's once a quarter, once a year is required, so that's really interesting. and then we also have the California passed a Responsible Textile Recovery Act, so if you are in the apparel and textile manufacturing or supplier business, that would be worth looking at to see how that may affect you in the future. 
 

Walmart is planning on automating their supply chain facilities in Arizona and Arkansas, so that tech we are anticipating will influence some of the OTIF and SQEP. Finds at distribution centers when we've seen suppliers, or rather when we've seen Walmart add more tech at their DCs. it usually correlates with the compliance program, so if they're adding things to help make the receivable process easier. 
 

It means suppliers are on the hook to be compliant to those programs. And then another thing I'll mention here is Walmart and Sam's Club, have mentioned merging some of their supply chains. So that'll be interesting on how that will affect suppliers. And then Amazon has hired, or is working on hiring their holiday season, Seasonal workers, so almost 250k full time, part time, and seasonal workers are coming, which means there's going to be a lot of work if there isn't work already on your desk as a supplier, so looking out for that. 
 

And again, please share some of the other news that you guys are seeing, if it's pertinent and relevant to being a supplier, because we share those. frequently on Vendorville as well. All right, now we're getting into the bulk of what we're talking about. this correlates with the newsletter. We have a Rick's Tips section where we typically highlight a common question that we get from suppliers or something that we see one supplier asking about and we figure that out and, send that back to them via email or if CSM. 
 

And we want to just answer those questions there and give us them a place. So if you are on the newsletter, you should definitely check those out, because sometimes they're very, diamond in the rough for something that we haven't gotten to talk about before. But today we're talking about AP deductions, so let's unpack that. 
 

Just a level set here. Because there is a lot of jargon in the industry, when it comes to Walmart, deductions is going to mean a subtraction or a deduction, that's where the name comes from your payment from Walmart. So you may get a check, let's say it's 1, 000 or it's supposed to be, but that it's only 800, you check APDP and that you have a deduction for about 1, 000. 
 

200. and that's where you would start that process of then disputing that or really backing up and saying, okay, is this valid? Should I go ahead and pay this? Or is this an invalid fine that I'm receiving? And can I go ahead and dispute this? The difference with Walmart is, from other retailers is compliance fines. 
      

So that's going to be not a deduction from an invoice that you're receiving from Walmart, but rather it's just additional payment. So a fine, on What you owe Walmart for whatever non compliant action or item that you have in the system. And that's going to be disputed and handled a completely different way. 
 

So Walmart really has their revenue loss or their, AP deductions and AR fines bucketed and siloed. Compliance fines are typically OTIF, so you're on time and full. And your SQEP fines or SQEP fines. And that's going to be disputed in high radius. We do have content on that. Peter can share that if that's something that you haven't heard of or you want to explore. 
 

But today we're going to be focusing on deductions because there are a ton of them. and we won't even be able to get into all of them today. important thing to remember is the timeline of AP deductions. deductions are going to come on basically a PO basis. if you have a PO, or you have an order that is 50 units and you only Walmart says you only sent them 30. 
 

That's going to be a shortage on that particular order, and it's going to be coming off that invoice. With post audits, you have to zoom out from the timeline a little bit and think about time in two year chunks. So post audits can be, hey, we didn't catch this PO issue that happened. a year and a half ago. 
 

So now we're having you, we're going to make you pay that in this larger audit. And it's also going to include more, more deductions, over that longer period of time. And typically for, a larger amount of money. So you're going to see fines that are typically like 500, 1, 000 kind of in that range. 
 

Post audits are going to be more in your a hundred K to half a million dollars, depending on, Volume and the severity of what those finds are. We have content on post audits that Peter will also send in the chat. I'm going to make him work behind the scenes to send those if you want to look at them. 
 

But it's important, and I'll be referencing post audits, because this is like a domino effect. If you're not handling, Your deductions or your compliance fines in a timely manner in, the, season that you have them and you're disputing them and saving that proof documentation, they can roll back around even if you disputed them, and show up on a post audit. 
 

So it's important to have that documentation and I'll mention that throughout the presentation. The other thing to mention before I leave this slide with post audits is it's not just a timeline thing. With disputing post audits, it's going to be outside the process of a portal. So the nice thing about accounts payable deductions is that they are an APDP, you have a system. 
 

With post audits, it's going to be with an auditing team, it's going to be an email chain, and it's for a larger amount of money. It's tedious and there's a little bit more on the line there. So that's how those are. Those are going to be different. Here's the quick overview of AP deductions. They're going to originate with the Walmart accounts payable department, which can be helpful to know who you're talking to when you are disputing these. 
 

However, if you're disputing in APDP, Walmart has a third party actually manage those claims and then resolve those claims as well. So that is GINPAC, that's been GINPAC for a couple years, and that's important to know who you're talking to when you are disputing those fines. Again, just another way to say what I've already said is a deduction is going to be a certain amount of money that's withheld from a check. 
 

because of some issue that has happened in the supply chain process. The claim number typically is the invoice number, so you'll see that in APDP. For backup information, we have APIS in RetailLink, so you can pull on that line level that information. and one thing I'll call out here is With APIS we have seen on the Walmart SupplierOne app that there will be similar functionality. 
 

So it may be worthwhile to go and look at SupplierOne and see if you're seeing some of the same information there and possibly using some of their, return scorecards or some of the other information that they're working on building up that new platform in, to see if it helps with your disputing process. 
 

So that's an aside there. And the information in APIS is going to typically be a deduction code, so it'll usually be, if it's a code 22, 022, and then a description, so it'll be goods billed, not shipped. That's not a whole lot of information. We'll, get into how you decode that, and then you have, how you go about building your proof documentation in your case for disputing and invalidifying. 
 

And then, depending On, how you're slicing and dicing it, there's about 75 AP deduction codes that are typically used with Walmart on a regular basis. and like I said, we won't have time to cover those, all of those, but we'll talk about some of the groupings, and how you can start to translate those and understand just by looking at the numbers. 
 

Here's what. they mean. And then lastly, I'll put an asterisk here. Most are disputed in APDP. However, Walmart has changed some of their documentation and processes where certain return claims or certain allowance claims are not disputed in APDP. and if you have questions, we can get into those in particular. 
 

But, typically they have set some guardrails within the portal that help you understand what you can dispute and what you can't. And then, we already talked about post audits, so that those larger claims that can come back to haunt you, since we're getting close to Halloween. even claims that you've already disputed. 
 

The other impact, the in between, so if a deduction is the short term and post audits are the long term, there's also these, I guess we'll call it middle term, where you can see fines start to stack. in this illustration, you can see, Code 24, where you're getting a deduction, and then it can result in, because there's miscommunication, because these, siloed compliance and AP deduction programs don't talk to each other, you can ultimately get on one PO, an OTIF fine, a SQEP fine, and an AP deduction. 
 

So that can be really frustrating, even if you have dispute one on your deduction, it could be deducted. in one of those compliance programs or a post audit. So here's where I'll harp on something that we talk about with our suppliers is if you don't have a great way that you're saving proof documentation or having that housed and accessible, that's going to be a pain point or a weakness in your, disputing and your rev revenue recovery system is making sure that No matter where you get that fine, you have that documentation ready. 
 

You have all the work that you did on possibly another claim. You can just pull that, dispute it, and move on and not have to do double work. So really important to call out there. All right, we want to talk about how you can have a good offense before just going into disputing. So the best thing to do when it comes to fighting deductions is learning how to avoid them and what in your supply chain, in your processes, can help circumnavigate those ahead of time and not have to spend time disputing those. 
 

So these are some of the high level things that if you're not practicing these now, or your team's not aware, this may be the root cause of what's going on. if you're seeing a lot of one particular type of code. So the first one is submitting the in, only one invoice per PO when possible. I know in systems like Nova, you maybe you've sent a PO and then you talk with your buyer, you only have X amount of product or they want to change things around and you have to manually edit that PO. 
 

Make sure that you're practicing, Clean systems with your submitting POs, so don't double send it if it's not going through. Make sure you cancel one and then send a new one, and not just send the old PO. That is updated because that will essentially confuse the system and you can probably track it back to a couple issues depending on, how it's sent or, what deduction codes it'd be tied to. 
 

The next is confirming your item setups. We have so much content on this. if you're not aware, you don't do item setup or maintenance. It's moved from item 360, which lived in RetailerLink. Now it is on the SupplierOne platform. It feels very similar. However, we were cautioning and did see some suppliers have a little bit of issues with that transfer, and making sure that everything was in order. 
 

In item 360, went to Supplier1 correctly. So confirm that those are correct. It's actually a great idea to do item level audits and see if that you're, if you're having issues with one particular item, and then going in and making sure that item is set up correctly. That has been the case for a lot of suppliers actually, and helping them root cause and solve. 
 

future deductions. And then another thing to call out here is just making sure that you have the correct pack quantity. So a vendor pack quantity and a warehouse pack quantity are not the same. Walmart typically asks for a warehouse pack, especially in Nova when you're editing like manual POs. So make sure you're not putting in vendor pack or you are definitely going to get overages and shortages and some wacky deductions because of just, a goof in a spreadsheet that you submitted. 
 

So make sure that you have those correct. Transmit your invoice in, Walmart item numbers or W I N or WIN. just another simple call out. Do it the way that Walmart likes and you won't have issues. You want to make sure you're doing it within that process. Match your PO, your invoice to the PO, and then don't make adjustments on the invoice that don't match the PO. 
 

That kind of goes to my first point about submitting only one invoice per PO. Just have a clean and organized system, or you're going to potentially see more claims or better claims. post audits that you get later down the line. Do not master pack different items. This is typically a recipe for disaster because that receiving process and this may change. 
 

Again, if you're seeing success with it, that's great. Typically, in that receiving process, we see suppliers who start master packing different items and that's great. What happens is they get a shortage on one item and an overage on another, and then they're going through the data and they're saying we actually sent all the correct information. 
 

Whether it's a manual receiving process or a automated one in that DC, we've seen issues on both sides. So just think about the way that you're, packing your items so that it's easy for Walmart. Whether it's, physical people handling that, or technology to understand what you're sending them. 
 

And Walmart actually has a guide listing all of their packaging preferences. Peter can send that link. We also have lots of articles on it, so he can send some of those resources if that's an issue you're facing. Facing. And then the last thing is tied to that master packing. Using color coding and imagery to differentiate between products. 
 

This can be helpful if you're seeing a lot of finds where you have, a Stanley cup that's orange and a Stanley cup that's red and you continue to get those overage and shortages combos that are happening. Maybe just marking those boxes red versus orange and having those labels be distinct. can help with some of that overage and shortage dance that can happen in the receiving process. 
 

So that's avoiding deductions. Now we're going to get into deduction codes that you need to know. Why do you need to know these? We're going to cover the ones that we see from the 500 plus suppliers that we work with that they typically get the most. And this is pretty common across even all retailers, the, number one. 
 

So you guys can take guesses in the comments if you want. but here are the, four or five categories that we're going to focus on today. So first is shortages and shipping related issues. We've talked a lot about that in avoiding deductions. The second is pricing discrepancies. And then the third and fourth are allowances and returns. 
 

And I mentioned those together because those can sometimes dance together or be disputed together, depending on the situation. And then there's miscellaneous, which we won't get into as much today. there are codes that are more, I would say edge cases. They're not ones that you're going to see a whole lot, but we do have documentation on that can talk through that. 
 

If you have a code that you've never seen before and want to talk about. All right. So we're going to talk about these four codes. And I mentioned at the top that the one that is the most common and we're going to cover today is code 22. And that's going to be a shipping and shortage code. So that first one is, we've got the code number, what kind of bucket it goes into, and then the description that Walmart provides. 
 

So I'll go through these all pretty briefly, and then we're going to go into different slides that cover these all more in depth. So the first is that code 22, the most common code for All Walmart suppliers, and even when we zoom out and look at Target suppliers or Amazon suppliers, that's what we see typically the most is a shortage code. 
 

Walmart defines this shortage code as the quantity of an item on the invoice that does not match the quantity the facility says it received. They also have code 24s and 25s, which we can get into if necessary, that are similar shortage codes, but they get into the nuance that can happen there. 
 

So like a code 25, for instance, sure, it is also saying the quantity of the item on the invoice does not match the quantity that the facility says it received. But code 25s are saying, There's no merchandise. I receive nothing, not even one unit of merchandise. So knowing those differences can help you decide how you want to start disputing and how you want to go about checking the validity of those disputes. 
 

All right, the second on this list is a merchandise code. This is code 93. And the hint for these is the ones in those 90s are typically going to be your return codes. You'll see some of those also tied to a code 14. So some of these codes you will also see typically get paired with other codes. 
 

And the nice thing, I'll spoil it now in APDP, is there is some logic where you can dispute one claim and it will let you know you should probably dispute this other claim that's attached to the same PO. and we'll talk about what story that tells, but essentially like with code 90s, this one being a 93, it's going to be attached to a handling fee. 
 

So we'll get into how you get into all of that. code 93 defined by Walmart is merchandise returned due to damages that prevented the item from being sold before it was placed on the store floor. So these codes also are more signifying where the return is going to happen. This one is saying it, went from the truck. 
 

Wherever the supplier sent it off from, to the DC, went to the DC, it was fine, got to the store. When the associate opened up the packaging to then put it on the store floor, it was damaged and was not able to even be put on the store floor. So that one gives you more context of where the situation happened, or where it was identified. 
 

Third here, we have code 10. This is going to be a pricing discrepancy. So this is for discrepancies in allowances between invoice versus PO. We'll get into that there. Typically this one doesn't get attached or have as much complexity with other codes. so we won't spend too much time on that one. And then the allowance code, 59. 
 

Another tip here is with code 50s, that range. Typically going to be an allowance code, but it will differentiate between those numbers in the 50 range of what kind of allowance it is. For a code 59, it's when an allowance is listed on the supplier agreement but it wasn't included on the invoice, so you're getting fined for not doing applying that as a supplier. 
 

So we'll get into all of those, but we'll start with the most asked for one, being Code 22. And these are from what we've identified, over the 400, 500 companies that we work with selling into Walmart. We see suppliers dealing with Code 22s. The most followed by code 25s and code 24s. So you can see in this 20s range, these are going to be shortage or shipping codes. 
 

The difference here is code 22 is going to be goods billed, not shipped. We talked through that already. That is saying whatever was on the invoice is not what the facility received. Whereas Code 25 could be spoken about the same way, but it is no merchandise received for the invoice. And then Code 24 is that carton shortage, or the freight bill is signed short. 
 

So it's more identifying where that shortage happened as well. Alright, so how would you go about disputing a Code 22? in this scenario, this means that it passed through, the BOL was stamped and received as in full, it didn't happen in the shipping process, but by the time it went into the receivable process at the DC, there are quantities greater than or less than what the facility claimed to receive.

this is going to involve, the headline here is essentially, Disputing that the invoice quantity should match the received quantity and that the supplier has done everything to ensure that. And how would you go about finding this Walmart deduction code? So this is a screenshot of APIS in Walmart.

You'll get notifications of this and you can see that it will usually be related to your own invoice and have that two to three digit code assigned. So if we were logging in, you'd see this deduction code and you'd see this merchandise. Build not shipped here as well. You can also get into the claim amount, which should line up with what is being, deducted in APDP.

And this can give you just a little bit more information than pull from your systems internally to know, okay, let, me pull up the BOL. Let me get some of the, reporting that I have from Luminate, to piece out the story of why is this invoice quantity not matching the, what the facility said that it received.

And this is just a call out. Like I said, we're talking about code 22s. You can even see it here on our, ebook. Peter will go ahead and drop this in the chat. But if we're talking about codes that want more information on, or we're not covering one, this would be the place to go. We've documented all of the codes that are pretty typical for suppliers at Walmart to see.

And you can go review that information there. All right. We're going to now talk about how you actually dispute in APDP, and with that we've got a lovely workflow. The steps for disputing AP deductions, and these again are how we have seen suppliers have the most success with disputing AP deductions.

So the first thing is to have some guardrails. If you go into APDP and you just start looking at the claims and digging into it and going down the rabbit holes, it can feel a little bit overwhelming, but it's important to set up some kind of constraint. And the two that we recommend starting with is defining that time period and then prioritizing the type of deduction that you want to dispute.

So time period being What is valid? What can I go dispute now? What hasn't expired? And sometimes that means in that time period, I want to go after my most expensive disputes, or I want to go after all my code 22s because I know how to go dispute those. So that's two ways that you can look at it. the time period is also important because codes do expire.

We do have a webinar in December that we're doing. It's not up yet, but I'll give you the kind of, T here. it's about the 2022 overages. So those are going to expire. If you have any of those sitting in APDP or in your system, you're not going to be able to dispute them but come, January 1, 2025. So going in and disputing those now is going to be a key priority for Q4, making sure you get those cleared out so you're not leaving money on the table and then losing that opportunity.

So set yourself some time constraints and then go in and find Some of that proof documentation. We recommend starting with finding the invoice in APIS, because that is a great thread to then go start pulling from your internal systems, pulling from any freight information that you have, depending on if you're collector free, prepaid.

And then once you have all of that kind of laying out in front of you, you can then start to determine what the validity of this claim is. So we like to call it invalid versus valid deductions, meaning valid being Okay, yes, I see where on the supplier side, I, my team made a mistake. We need to learn from this.

that workflow is going to look like addressing the problem, fixing wherever it is, let's say it's an item setup issue, going in, fixing that, and just making a note of it. you can go try and dispute a valid deduction on APDP, if there is. a particular issue, but ultimately you want to just adapt if you're not able to get.

or recover that, that, claim dollar amount. And then with invalid deductions, you will continue gathering that proof documentation. Maybe you need additional, documentation that you didn't do in the validity check. Then you'll dispute that on APDP. You'll have your All your proof documentation laid out, you'll have kind of a short description that you'll add, and then in both situations, you'll want to save that documentation for later claims or audits, whether that comes up again in a post audit a year and a half later, or if it shows up And an OTIF find in the next quarter.

You want to make sure that you're able to not have to find all of the, that information again and not have to do double work. So that's a general workflow for your team, but how do you actually go in and use the APDB platform? So with that, here's a couple of things. If you've never. SetFoot into APDP, or if you've been here for a while, there are some kind of nuances and tips and tricks.

The first thing is, DirectCommerce. If you've been around for a while, you'll remember DirectCommerce. That used to be the old disputing platform. You're actually not able to dispute any of those claims, but I think there are some audit periods where you may need to go pull historical data, but we're getting to a point where DirectCommerce will not have any of that information anymore, Another thing that I already mentioned is Genpak. They are still reviewing disputes. They used to review IndirectCommerce, so it is the same third party company that's doing that on behalf of Walmart. I also said this before, most AP reusing codes can be disputed in APDP. Walmart does have documentation that is linked in APDP to show you which ones that you can't.

You can also find those in Supplier Academy, and we do have some articles detailing some of those updates. One thing about APDP that is different than other supplier portals for disputing is that you can re dispute up to about three times. So if you're familiar with Vendor Central on Amazon, you actually can only really dispute once.

After that, it becomes an email thread. It's a little bit more tedious. With APDP, you can go back, if you have additional documentation, or revision to that claim, you can go in and dispute. So it's worthwhile if you have the capacity, and the resources to do especially if it's a lot of one particular type of claim that adds up, or just really bulky, expensive claims.

and this is what the application looks like. You can see, at a high level, what these different claims are. You can see, we've got the draft, those are claims you can save in draft that you're not done working on. But, I have a tip on that here in a second, I think. I'll mention it now. You can actually only save this for about 14 days, and then they'll expire.

you want to make sure if you have ones that are almost done, to get those done in a timely, two week time period. There's also supplier action. That should be a huge call out to any suppliers that are disputing in APDP. That means you or your team need to take action on those particular claims that Unless you're adding something to whatever request is being asked from the Genpak team, your claim is just going to sit there.

Otherwise, your claim should mostly be in Walmart Research. That means that the Genpak team is reviewing it, and they're going through those claims, and they haven't made a decision yet. And then you can see your approved or your denied claims, and go back in and then pull any of that information if needed.

All right, there's basically two types of disputing in APDP. The main difference is disputing by invoice or those claim line level disputes. so it's just two different groupings there. So for invoice based disputing, you can dispute an entire invoice. APDP requires first looking up the claim or the invoice record, and then creating a dispute for that record.

So there's basically just two ways to start that. And then for an individual dispute for every claim line, you'll want to challenge that invoice. And you can see how you would click that there. So you'd click. to check it, and then you would hit Dispute All, essentially. Okay, like I said before, when you go into APDP, you don't want to start disputing, or just digging into things.

You want to be pretty calculated and have a strategy, or you will be spending most of your time in there, For the volume of claims that we see, average suppliers, it could take one person a week. typically claims take about 30 minutes to go through, pull the proof documentation and submit the dispute in APDP.

So those can really add up. So this is the checklist that you'll need to make is having a relevant POD or BOL, a copy of the invoice, So that's the EDI code, 810, a purchase order, EDI 850. And then for some of those claims, it may be helpful to have your supplier agreement, especially for returns and allowances.

And some of those actually can't even be disputed in APDP. So that can be helpful to see where you need to take action in other areas of Walmart's ecosystem. Here's some other information that you're going to need. to fill out in the claim. So if you don't have that, you'll want to pull that ahead of time before you get into EPDP.

so you'll have the claim number and for deductions that are related to a particular invoice, your, the claim number is the invoice number. So that's easy. claim date. Clarifying thing here is, it's not necessarily the invoice date or the check date, it's the specific date from the claim when the claim was issued.

So you want to make sure that you're having those dates match up correctly. And then dispute type. Again, this was going to be pulled from APIS, it will also be within APDP, and that's going to be the deduction check line and on the location type as well. Next is the claim code. So it's within a given claim and this is again like with if you have a code 93 and sometimes there's a pop up in APDP where it says you could also dispute claim 13 or claim 14 with this as well.

So you'll have some of that but it's also helpful to know ahead of time which claims should be disputed together and would have the same proof documentation and be. tied to that invoice or claim line level. And then the disputed amount. So some suppliers have gone the route of, okay, I see that three fourths of this claim is inaccurate, but they did capture an issue, that is valid, but it's only one fourth of the claim amounts, that dollar amount.

Go ahead and dispute the full claim amount. It's actually more confusing. We've seen more issues with Genpak not understanding what the supplier is trying to communicate. Go ahead and dispute the full amount, even if you're only due part of it, just because Walmart will typically have more questions or reject disputes when it doesn't match the claim amount.

it's just more confusing for them. Go ahead and dispute the full claim amount. You can go back and just save that proof documentation if you're worried that it's going to come back in the form of an audit in the future. Other information that may be helpful, if you have multiple six digit supplier numbers, you want to make sure that you're matching the correct one from the claim.

The purchase order number is also helpful information. And then this is optional, especially depending on how you handle your freight, but the freight carrier can also have additional help here. one thing to call out that I want to, to reference, we've heard some suppliers have questions on, okay, how do I then just send this claim to my freight carrier?

It's actually their fault. I've identified that in my validity check. you can't send a, claim to in APDP to a carrier through that portal, but you can say, hey, it's valid, you can claim that, and then follow up with your freight carrier, and that's it. depending on your relationship and your contract, see how that they may take on some of those fines.

But again, that is something you'll want to think about when it's coming to negotiating freight and how you're dealing with that. Obviously, if you're using Walmart freight or collect with Walmart, it's going to be different. but that's something that you would then go in and dispute. So that's really going to be if you're prepaid or using someone other than Walmart.

Okay, a couple more things that can be helpful depending on the claim is, location. This may be required depending on the type of dispute that will be outlined in APDP, and that's just essentially where it was originated. So that kind of goes back to what we talked about. With Code 93s, where the merchandise was damaged.

It wasn't damaged all the way up until it reached the store. Maybe it was a concealed damage. you would want to include that, location. That's also helpful information if you're seeing that. Repeated. So if it's one particular store that continues to say, Hey, this merchandise is damaged, going and doing an audit and seeing what's going on.

Is it really getting damaged when it gets there? Is there something else going on? just another thing to dig into. Other shipping method that's going to be required. If you don't know, it's probably collect. You're probably shipping with Walmart. And then description is optional. This is essentially outlining the claim, what's happening.

depending on. what you're doing, it's best to just have a couple canned responses for the typical claim type, and situation. And we recommend those being short and sweet to the point, we don't always see the individuals reviewing these disputes referencing this, but it can be helpful, especially for your team to go back and reference as well.

And then we've already talked about shipping documents, collect being your BOL, prepaid being your proof of delivery or drop state trailer stamp can be helpful. This is, going to be extremely helpful for those claims where you need to prove that the items on the invoice were picked up or delivered in full, so that can be your smoking gun for a lot of your shortage claims.

And then we'll do a quick step by step. I'm giving myself a time check, on dispute processes for claims. So again, pretty simple. You click Create Dispute. if you're going to create it based on APIS information, you'll select the correct six digit vendor number, and then select Claim, and you can either search that, use the search functions, depending on how you're disputing.

Again, you enter the claim number or the date range for when you receive the deduction. And we have seen that selecting a larger date range can be a lot difficult and harder to wade through those claims. So 10 days or fewer can be the best recommendation for finding that claim and being able to pinpoint that.

Then you'll search. You'll see a line of, a couple lines of claims. You want to select the one that matches the criteria that you're looking for and create dispute. And then you'll go in and select individual lines, to dispute or update those dispute lines. And you have to check this box. The thing about APDP is Making sure that you click all the little, checkboxes, or they do have save buttons on the bottom right hand corner.

We have seen some suppliers who think that they dispute something, and they go in and realize that they actually never hit that dispute button or that save button, and then their work goes away that they, were working on. And here's that pop up I was talking about. Some claim codes should be disputed together.

Some of them aren't going to be required, but it's helpful to know some of the pairings that go together. for code 22s, sometimes there's a code 13. same with 21 and 24. Sometimes there's a code 13. 13. And then all these codes that kind of feel like random numbers, 94, 60, 44, 120. Those are, again, those allowances or dedu allowances or return deductions.

And we have lots of content on that we can send in the chat as well. Okay. And then you just update those following fields. So you already were prepared to dispute this claim. You go in and you know exactly how to fill that out. It's easy to get through. You're not wading through your proof documentation.

And then you're filling all of that, information out and clicking the add button on the right to add information to a new dispute. So that's there. And then for attaching supporting documentations, you need to attach proof. So making sure that you're clicking that button. There is a new function on APDP called multiple dispute creation, where you can dispute, I think it's up to 500 claims.

They've increased it as they've rolled that out. However, you can't attach proof documentation to that. So if you're disputing on a claim line level, it's a lot easier to be able to. see those deductions approved because you do have that proof document attachment feature. one thing to call out in terms of your strategy.

All right, and then getting to the end here, after adding all of your dispute information, you just click through next, and you can toggle between those, Again, you can hit that save button to create a draft and return to it. But like I mentioned at the top, those draft, those drafted disputes are only saved for 14 days and they won't submit on their own.

and if you're not disputing those, they will then cancel the, if you're not, submitting those, it will cancel that saved draft. So make sure you're disputing this in a timely manner. All right. And after all that work, it's probably taken you about. 30 to 20 minutes. You can hit dispute and you will receive a notification that is, it is successfully submitted.

That will come in the form of a pop up. If that doesn't show up, that probably means that you need to go check and see if the dispute went through. And if not, it's worthwhile to go in and ask, the Walmart help desk what happened, to make sure that you're able to smoothly submit your disputes. Alright, here's just a quick example.

Some benchmarking information. This has changed over time, over the last two or three years that we've been monitoring this. typically we see from the time that a supplier submits it, it takes about 45 days to move to, approved or denied. less than half of disputes are approved in seven days, and that's on a typical kind of workflow.

When settlement was discontinued and all suppliers were using APDP, we saw that increase. So it's important to just factor in if there are changes or if there are errors that are happening with retailing or with APDP. That timeline is going to increase, so if you're thinking about cash flow, that's a point to have there, so submitting your disputes early, and being on top of them is going to make sure you're not running into those obstacles.

And then in terms of getting repaid, we see most disputes get repaid after they're approved in about six days. we do add on those. 14 plus days because there are some claims that may take longer just depending on some of those edge cases. All right, last thing that I'll mention here is Walmart's larger standard for disputing is about two years.

However, if you are using Collect, there are some limitations on that. Again, if you're going for the best practice or what's the like short and easy tip, just stay on top of your claims. as much as possible as they come in or have a dedicated time bi weekly or monthly to work on those claims for your team because collect carriers have a shorter time frame for when they need to be filed and if it's outside of that those claim timelines you're probably not going to see an approval just because that documentation isn't there.

So this is what we have observed If you're waiting long, almost to that, year mark for claims, you may have a less likely time, to see an approval if you are disputing with, if you're a collect supplier disputing. So this is the rough timelines that we're seeing, because of that information being, rolled over.

All right, that was a lot of information, a lot of AP deductions, and I'm sure a lot of information shared in the chat. So we'll go, we have about five minutes for Q&A. Peter, take us away. What questions do we have?

[00:51:43] Peter: We got two questions so far. First one is, if Walmart denies repayment on an invalid claim three times, is there another way to submit the claim for repayment?

[00:51:56] Allie: Yes. great, that supplier is disputing that claim up to three times. You can then take it to a couple different places. I would say, and the name has changed several times, but you could take that to the Walmart Enterprise. Basically their help desk within kind of the RetailLink ecosystem and present that information.

They'll probably hand you to a Genpak team and it would turn into more of a email dispute situation. so you want to think about, hey, is that Worth my time to track that down. Sounds like it is if you're just reading it up to three times. the other situation that you can use, however, I say it with caution, is pulling your buyer into that.

Again, you'll want to think about the relationship that your team has with your buyer. If you have other things going on, whether that's negotiation or line reviews, or you're trying to sell in this new item. Think about the context and the relationship that you have, but that is something where you could pull in your buyer and say, hey, I've disputed this three times, here's my proof documentation, can you help me resolve this?

I'd start first with, the, either the, I know there's an email for APDB questions and claims, then I'd go to that larger like enterprise business solutions, which is the help desk for RetailLink, and then I would go to your buyer. So hopefully that's helpful. Yep.

[00:53:33] Peter: Great. And then, we had a product related, a SupplyPike product related question about, APDP and, and SupplyPike questions.

Just to clarify, but all these disputes through APDP are what we are disputing through the SupplyPike portal, right? Or is there anything that we should dispute directly through APDP?

[00:53:56] Allie: That's a good question. just for context, if you're not a customer, you would need to be disputing through APDP or the other channels for the claims that you can't dispute in APDP because you're not using the SupplyPike portal.

SupplyPike has an application that is separate from what RetailLink has that helps suppliers manage those in a way that's a little bit more clear, and has some additional features like Documentation to help with overages, post audits, help with OTIF and SQEP visibility and disputing. That's separate.

if you're interested in that, Peter can send the demo link if you aren't involved with that right now. To answer the question directly, just after giving that context, I don't believe there's any claims that you would need to be disputing outside of APDP. I know that there are, different functionalities, and I'd have to look at, the larger, Claims that you have, but the best person to talk about that because they know your business in particular is your CSM And they'd be handling that with you So I'm gonna say no, but reach out to your CSM and ask them just in case there is one of those miscellaneous fines that comes through that You haven't disputed, so

[00:55:14] Peter: yeah, because, SupplyPike is integrated to APDP.

I think that's the heart of it is you probably don't have to do very much in APDP at all, depending on the size of the business and depending on what kind of finds you get. But to Allie's point, There could be some, deduction codes that you can't dispute through SupplyPike. And none of those are coming to mind for me either.

Yeah, and

[00:55:39] Allie: those wouldn't be disputable in APDP either. So that would be that extra layer. But again, your CSM would be able to help you with finding the best solution for that.

[00:55:52] Peter: And then we had one more come in. You mentioned that disputing certain deduction codes will expire after January 1, 2025.

Could you repeat that info?

[00:56:00] Allie: Yes. you can actually come to our webinar. It will be, live here pretty soon. It's going to be in January. So those are our, Overage claims. Those are overage claims for 2022 time period. And an overage claim is basically the opposite of a shortage. It's saying that you sent Walmart too much product, and they're not going to be holding that because they run a very tight ship.

want to be streamlined. so they will actually fine you for sending more product than what was requested on the PO. and those expire and are a different cadence. So if you want more of that information, Peter can send one of our previous webinars or articles that we have on just general Overidge information, but we're going to be covering that with, Hudson, who is our product manager on Walmart.

And he's actually helped build out one of the features that we use for Overidge's. How SupplyPike customers are able to dispute overages. So we'll be covering that.

[00:57:03] Peter: Yeah, I'll post that. There's a link there to an older webinar on overages. I highly recommend watching that. That could just answer all of your questions for you.

But yeah, early in December, probably the first half of the month, we'll be doing a webinar on specifically, these ones are going to be timing out. we'll be talking.

[00:57:25] Allie: Yeah. Perfect.

[00:57:28] Peter: Great. I think that's everything. Okay. Sweet. Coming in your participation, want to call out. I, we've, I've been spamming you guys with resources, , but if you're still, if you're still hungry for more, you can't get enough, there's a lot more on the website.

and again, these are helpful, you can, keep them on hand or you can send them to people. you don't want to read the whole thing cover to cover. It's a lot. but, you can CTRL F and search for the term you're looking for. Something like that in these longer eBooks and resources and stuff.

So definitely go check that out as well. And we've got our emails up here. if you want to ask your question again or ask another clarifying question, or you think that you might, If you have other questions, you can write these down now, or again, we'll be sending this out in a little bit too.

and you can also look at any of our other webinars at the end of them that we're on. Our emails are on those too. so yeah, please feel free to email us with your questions and, we'll answer them. Or if we can't, we can pass you along to someone who, probably can't. Unless it's an insoluble, question that no one in the whole world can answer.

and then, hey.

[00:58:48] Allie: We haven't run into too many of those, but thank you guys for joining this webinar. We hope to see you in another one. Thank you, Peter, for managing the chat and giving us our fun question. And hopefully we don't run into any gators. Yeah. Yeah. Wishing that for everyone. All right.

Take care, y'all.