Walmart's APDP 101

Walmart’s Accounts Payable Disputes Portal (APDP) is the app for all deductions disputes. Join the SupplyPike team to learn how to navigate the APDP app like a pro.

Transcript

WalmartsAPDP101 
 
[00:00:00] Allie Troung: All right, well, let's go ahead and get started today. We're talking about APDP 101. You're joined by myself, Allie Troung, and then we've got Peter leading content today. And we are the SupplierWiki content team. We've got some other members on the team, but really when it comes to articles, webinars, eBooks, anything you find on SupplierWiki, we've probably worked on in some capacity. 
 
So we're really excited to talk about APDP 101 today. For the agenda, we're going to talk about just the basics. What is APDP. This is a Walmart app. It's been around for a while. Kind of talk a little bit about the history, which can be helpful when understanding, you know, where we are now. Then we'll talk about accessing and using the APDP app to dispute deductions and some of the tips and tricks with that. 
 
And then we'll go into a Q&A with myself and Peter at the end. So get your questions in, and then we're going to be joined by Lucas. He's a product expert, and he's going to walk us through a sneak peek. And I'll talk about that here in a little bit as well. All right. And here are some of our most asked questions. 
 
So the first one is, will we get a copy of the slide deck? Yes, feel free to take notes, but we send the slide deck to your email that you signed up for this webinar on. We'll send the recording and we'll send a copy of the slide deck, and we'll get that to you in about three to four business days. And then what's the best way to ask a question? 
 
So the best way to ask a question is through the Q&A tab on Zoom. That's the easiest way I'll be able to see your question. I may interject during... today's webinar if the question is pertinent, but usually I'll save most of them to the end. So get those questions in early in the Q&A and a tab. If you have a comment, or we ask a question kind of to the whole group an example would be what type of deduction do you get the most in APDP? Go ahead and throw that in the chat so everyone can see it and we can engage in the dialogue together. All right. And if this is your first webinar, welcome. We'd like to introduce ourselves. We're a part of SupplyPike and we create cloud based tools that help CPGs reduce revenue loss by automatically detecting and resolving retail compliance issues. 
 
We do this in a couple of different ways. We're in Northwest Arkansas, which is home to Walmart. So we started with Walmart and that's what we're going to be talking about today. We've got a couple different solutions in Walmart, one of those being deductions. So we have a product that helps automate deductions. 
 
There's a lot of really cool things that make that process a whole lot easier. Then we also have a product that works with Walmart compliance and that is includes SQEP and OTIF fines. So understanding root cause and helping dispute those as well. We're also in other retailers that being Target, Amazon and Kroger. 
 
And we work with a lot of awesome companies like you. So we hope to see your logo on this slide at some point. All right, and I'm going to introduce this now, but we're actually going to save it to the end, just because I wanted to make sure that everyone's aware of what's happening. So we're going to have a new initiative on our webinars, called Instant Meetings. 
 
And Lucas is actually going to come on at the end and show a little sneak peek of our product with Walmart deductions. And he's going to give the opportunity for anyone to have a brief meeting with him after this Zoom call to kind of talk a little bit more about what your business would look like one on one and engage in some of his product expertise. 
 
So if you're interested in that, stick around for the end and we'll make sure that you get connected with Lucas. All right. And with that, I'm gonna go off here in a second and hand it over to Peter to get into the content. 
 
[00:03:59] Peter Spaulding: All right.  
 
Thank you very much, Allie. So this this series that we're doing around AP deductions was kind of inspired by the discontinuation of settlement disputing at Walmart that went into effect in May, but that has kind of been that we've known about since, I think about December of last year. 
 
So it's been something that has been kind of, on all of our minds at SupplyPike, but probably something that has been either on the minds of a lot of suppliers as well, especially those who are very reliant on settlement disputing. And also just maybe a potential anxiety, right? APDP right now is kind of overwhelmed with with disputes, because all of the companies who are coming off settlement disputing are now having to kind of, do individual disputing in APDP. 
 
But we'll get into all of that as we go. This is the introductory course. We have a 201 coming up here in a little bit as well. And another kind of webinar on accounting that maybe Allie would like to share this in the chat. If this is good for you, but you want to dive a little bit deeper, then definitely join us for that 201 that we're going to do. 
 
This series is designed for suppliers who are kind of having to really do a lot of APDP heavy lifting now that settlement disputing isn't really working so much anymore. So maybe that describes your business maybe you just want a refresher but that's kind of the heart behind this series and and really the heart behind all of SupplyPike, what we've been really deeply engaged with for for quite a number of years now, So, APDP, this is kind of more like the history of APDP. 
 
I think is two years old now. I'm not totally sure if that number is right, or maybe , we're approaching the the two year mark from when direct commerce was switched over to APDP as the kind of platform for dealing with AP deductions. So yeah, direct commerce was if you've been in the Walmart game for a number of years, it's probably something that's familiar to you. 
 
Now APDP kind of has that function in direct commerce's place. So here's the portal and the display we'll be spending a lot of time in this display and in others kind of today just walking through some of the some of the highlights of it. But these are some of the different sort of filters you could apply to your disputes to kind of track and to kind of stay aware, stay aware of them as well. 
 
So, a little bit of kind of what that transition was like a few years ago, direct commerce was a third party application. So, it would be kind of the equivalent of high graph right now. High graph is what Walmart uses to handle their AR deductions. Through OTIF and SQEP. If you want to dispute an invalid OTIF or SQEP deduction, you do that through high graph, right? 
 
Whereas APDP was Walmart built, and it's integrated into Retail Link, so it's happening through that whole meta portal, if you will. The disputes were keyed in from scratch in direct commerce whereas in APDP they were tied to claims and invoices. Which was something that was potential improvement. 
 
I guess we could say there was one dispute per deduction in direct commerce whereas an APDP is one dispute per claim line and the overall approved slash denied status for a deduction was what was in direct commerce, whereas an APDP, you could have multiple statuses per deduction. So, basically APDP is kind of Walmart. 
 
Holding their cards a little bit closer to the chest to be able to have a little bit more oversight into that into their kind of AP deductions and to the disputes of those. Also, I think you could say you could kind of continue that narrative forward through to this time right now, where we're in the post settlement world. 
 
In settlement disputing, right? Walmart doesn't have complete oversight into every dispute that's happening, right? They're just making a kind of out of court settlement, I guess, for those shortage deductions and other deductions but in APDP now they're actually going over each of them individually, right? 
 
Which has been, which has created a ton of extra work for Walmart, created a ton of extra work for for the suppliers. Who are having to go through that transition as well? And it's kind of it's really backed up the app too, but to kind of try to maybe see it from Walmart's perspective now there's greater insight or greater oversight. 
 
You could say into kind of the whole of the dispute process. But along with that, along with that increase that ballooning in data is all of the problems that would come along with that. It's a lot to keep up with. So that's kind of a little bit about the difference there. So, what didn't change in that process? 
 
Genpact is still reviewing disputes. Dispute review times appear similar until recently, right? Whenever they've ballooned. Some types of proof documentation that are required have stayed the same. Walmart has not published any changes on expectations of proof documentation required for different claim codes. 
 
So the whole. The whole code process is still the same. If you have a 25, you're still going to deal with it in the same way. It's more of the platform that changed in that process. So, a few things that we like to kind of, even continue reminding people of a few years down the road, the historical direct commerce dispute data is not being migrated to APDP, right? 
 
So if you were, if you were someone who is who is more kind of intimately involved with direct commerce back in the day you'll be more familiar with that. Basically. You need to be keeping track of your own data. APDP won't kind of hold on to that. So, you could see a claim in APDP that looks like it can be disputed, even though it was already disputed in direct commerce. 
 
So that would be more for if you're again, we're approaching, I think, what is the two year period? That won't be as common now that we're going to move out of that. But if you've been in the game for a while that would make more sense for for you. Canceled or rejected direct commerce disputes should be re disputed through APDP. 
 
And again, that's something that we're kind of we're moving beyond the point at which that would even be applicable but if you're going way back there you definitely want to re dispute those in APDP. So, I've been alluding to this a lot already, so I won't spend too much time on this. But there were in the letter that Walmart sent out in December, it was May 1st was whenever officially settlement disputing was going to be retired, but I think it's been staggered a little bit now at this point. 
 
No one's doing settlement as far as as far as we know, maybe there are kind of individual exceptions to that rule. But the the suggestion that Walmart is having is that everyone kind of transition from that into APDP. However you, the, this is a, this is something that will explain kind of in greater detail later. 
 
Mass dispute creation is the, is the, is Walmart's kind of solution for getting off of settlement disputing, but you can't attach proof documentation to that. So the win rate is much, much lower than it was under settlement disputing. It went from about an average of 60% with settlement to 18% with mass dispute creation. 
 
So that's something to kind of keep in mind. Again, Walmart is keeping their cards close to the chest here. That's a lot of if, if I guess I want to be careful about making any kind of insinuations about Walmart's intentions but that that change for them again, it gives them more oversight, more insight into that. 
 
Dispute process. Okay. So, now we're gonna kind of just go into the app itself and talk about a little bit more kind of through the process again. If you are unfamiliar with this process, if you're a new supplier, this will all kind of be helpful for you. But hopefully this is a little bit of review for everyone else. 
 
So retail link, you know, if you can get logged in if you're not having troubles getting into Retail Link, then you would just find it under the app section along with everything else there to these, these instructions are very granular and detailed for, you know, if you're, if you're really having trouble getting into Retail Link, which is something that happens pretty regularly, you would Something we like to recommend often is for apps that are, that are really important to your process. 
 
Just go ahead and star them. And if you star them, they will appear on the homepage. Or all of the starred ones will be in a section. You may have to scroll through it to find yours. But yeah, apps like APIS and APDP in this display have been starred because they're going to be used pretty regularly. 
 
And again, it depends on the Retail Link user. It depends on on who the admin is for the Retail Link page. So, but that's, that's something that we would definitely recommend with APDP. You, you'll probably spending it. be spending a considerable amount of time in there that you'd want it starred. 
 
So claim and invoice based disputing are, are two different ways of, of, of making these disputes happen. DCI required typing in all dispute information from scratch for any AP deduction. APDP requires first looking up a claim or invoice record. then creating a dispute from that record. 
 
So that's just, again, their way of being able to kind of track everything and make sure that it's all connected in that sense. But disputing can happen on the claim and on the invoice level depending on how, I guess, depending on the scale of the dispute. So, claim line level disputes are yeah, just the more granular version. 
 
Previously, Walmart expected a single dispute for each grouping of light claim lines within a claim. So that's what those are. That's what you can see highlighted down there. 
 
But with APDP, you can now create an individual dispute for every claim line that you can dispute, right? So it's just a little bit more of a granular process. You can go down to the individual claim level, which is, you know, it's, it's a good thing, but it also requires more detailed research and kind of background research on the part of whoever's doing the disputes for your business. So that again, it's, it's a, it's a good change in the sense that it is more granular, so you can dive a little bit deeper, but it also requires more work and more work up front. Multiple dispute statuses per deduction exist, okay. 
 
Because a dispute can be created for every claim line, it is possible to have multiple dispute statuses within a single claim or deduction. So that's, that can get pretty complicated, especially with keeping your own data and documentation as well. But the bottom line, as we would like to say, is that it's harder than ever to keep track of the status of disputed claims, right? 
 
As it gets more granular, it gets more complicated to keep track of them. Okay, so disputing claims, we'll get, we'll get into the actual process of it here. You can create a dispute from a claim if there is a claim record in APIS, right? So that's how that's how you would start. That's where you're gonna have all of your information on the claim. 
 
And that's where you need to get that's where you need to start in order to dispute an individual claim in APDP. So that's the claim number here in this, in this image and the claim ID and a vendor number to give an example for that as well. And then you've got the line numbers listed over there. 
 
All right. So, at the top of the app, click the create dispute button. Then you have to start with the, with the vendor number. So the, over here in APIS is the third number at the top there. And that will just kind of, it's just a process of funneling the information or narrowing the information down, starting with the vendor number and then getting to the claim line level as well. 
 
So, you want to do the claim based disputing instead of an invoice one. For that section that they, they've described as create a dispute based on question mark. But that is again, just kind of how, how big of of a dispute are you, are you actually making? Where was the error? Was it at the claim level or was it at the invoice level? 
 
Then next, what you're going to do is you're going to enter the claim number or enter a date range within which the supplier received the deduction, right? So, you can only select a date range of 10 days or fewer and then you could do the search button. So you could search it based off of that. 
 
Again, I think what's ideal is to have the claim number on hand from APIS. But if. If all that you have available is a very specific date range, then you can search for that way as well. Okay, so you'll see a list of the claims that match the criteria entered. And then to create a dispute, you click on create dispute. 
 
So that. Yeah, the, the search terms are really important for those to be accurate as well. 
 
Okay. In the create or slash update dispute section select individual lines to dispute or update dispute lines. So again, if you, if you don't get it exactly right the first time you can go update it later. But to dispute a claim line you just have to check the box at the far left of the line. 
 
So that's how you make it on the individual line level. If there's, if there's a bunch that have come up within that date range that that your dispute does not apply to, 
 
right? Parent child claim lines. Certain claim codes are required to be disputed together if they occur, if they occur on the same claim. So, again, we're talking about the individual claim level. This is just one of the kind of limitations around that. So codes 13, 21, 22, and 24 have to be grouped together because of the nature of them what they're describing. 
 
They can't be just sort of, siloed, I guess, if that makes sense. But yeah, that, that makes, It makes more sense the more you dig into those individual examples, but in the in the actual process of disputing, ideally, you would have in your head exactly what went wrong, and you would know what these parent child claim lines are as a result of that. 
 
Okay. So disputing claims update the following fields as needed. So, this is similar to the selecting the individual claim lines. These updates can happen as you go. The description field is mandatory in order to create a dispute. It's maybe the most important part. Click the add button to the right of the description to add the information to the new dispute. 
 
So that'll give them a, that'll give them a a sense of what the dispute is actually about. So you must attach supporting documentation, such as PODs or freight bills using the attach proof link and pretty self explanatory. The bigger issue is just going about finding those documents and and, and packaging them in a way that is very readable and accessible. 
 
So, you may bulk add documents to some or all of the claim lines in the claim lines list by clicking on the attach proof for multi lines button. So yeah, again, it depends on, it depends on the scope of the dispute. Is this, is this proof documentation something that will be relevant for all of those claim lines or just individual ones. That's the distinction there. 
 
Okay. Which file formats are acceptable for documentation? Those are listed right there. So PDF, JPEG, TIFF, Word, EML, MSG, XLSX, XLS. That is the full extent of those. 
 
After writing all dispute information and documentation click the next button at the bottom of the page just to kind of move on through the process. You can still go back, so it's not a, it's not a permanent thing. You can go back and edit the claim just by clicking previous. And then you can save to create a draft of the dispute before disputing itself. 
 
If you need to go back into a different app to get more information or, you know, go find that proof documentation, something like that, that's what you'll want to do. Drafted dispute disputes are saved for 14 days only. That's really important to remember. And then if you don't submit at that time, the system will cancel the dispute. 
 
So if what you're doing is kind of going through and creating a whole bunch of drafts that you'll then dispute later You'll start losing those at 14 days. So yeah, again, it's about what works best for your team. What what kind of working power you have at your company to be doing these disputes. 
 
But that's a very important number to kind of bear in mind. You don't want to, you don't want to have a bunch of disputes that still require a bunch of proof documentation that are approaching that 14 day period. Okay when you click the submit button it'll send it through and the pop up window will show you this confirmation that it has been successfully submitted. 
 
That doesn't mean it'll be successfully paid back. But it does mean the requirements. The required fields at least have been filled. Okay, so now we'll go to the invoice level disputing spend some time there. To create a dispute from an invoice there is there won't be a claim record in APIS. 
 
So, so you won't be using that for that process. 
 
Alrighty, 
 
you'll be to, to dispute an invoice, you dispute with the invoice number, right? So that's key there. 
 
And that is an APIS. Sorry. You will, you do use APIS to to get that information or at least that's you can see the individual invoice numbers there as well. So at the top of the app click the create dispute button again, just like you would have at in the, in the other form. At the claim level, sorry select the six digit vendor number just as you would before to but the difference is that you obviously are going to click invoice for create dispute based on. 
 
So, once you enter the invoice number or again with the date range to do the search function you'll see the same results, hopefully with the invoice number. Yes, hopefully with the invoice number, you won't have a bunch of lines that you'll be disputing. It'll just be the invoice itself. 
 
So you'll see a list of the supplier's invoices that match the criteria entered. Again, maybe there's a date range that you're thinking of off the top of your head or maybe there's a specific invoice and, and your criteria can narrow it down to just that single result. But what you do there is under the select tab, you'll click create dispute for that invoice number. You can also filter by invoice number too. If you, if you have a really big date range that could be a really important feature if you have the invoice number on hand. Okay. So to dispute an invoice line check the box at the far left of the line select the deduction code listed on the invoice, add the dispute amount and the description. So all of those are obviously really important for having a sense of Of what you believe Walmart's error was or what exactly Walmart is accusing you of having the mistake that they are saying you have made in the deduction code. 
 
The description field is also mandatory. So, again, that's going to be really key for that's going to be really key for communicating to Walmart. What exactly where exactly the miscommunication is happening. What exactly went wrong. And then you'll add you click add to add changes to the new dispute. 
 
That will lock those in. Okay, after adding all dispute information, documentation, click the next button at the bottom of the page, just like before. You can still go back and edit just like before as well by clicking the previous button and you can still save as well. If you want to, if you want to keep some drafts open to return to later again, if you need, if you need more information you can save those as well. 
 
So, same kind of display will show up there to show that you've. Filled out the required spaces. But again, it's not saying that your dispute is successful necessarily. Similar sort of pop up window will come up there. All right. So, that's just the filing of the disputes and that process, but actually following up with them is a different game, which is what we're covering here. 
 
So, staying on top of the dispute statuses is really important. And some of these are just right there on the APDP heads up display. So, they use slightly different names for certain statuses then direct commerce did, but a lot of these are pretty self explanatory. So, pending Walmart is now Walmart research. 
 
Basically Walmart's just. Testing what you have testing the validity of your dispute, right? Pending vendor action is now supplier action. Rejected is now denied. Pretty self explanatory. Cancelled is still cancelled and approved is still approved. So those are pretty straightforward. Just tiny little language changes that if you were very familiar with direct commerce or if you're still in the process of disputing old fines and you're, and you're still kind of in the mindset of that older language those are the smaller changes that they've made. 
 
Okay, so a dispute has been started but not completed. It's in the draft state. It can either be submitted or cancelled. Unsubmitted drafts are cancelled after 14 days. Again really important reminder there as well. 
 
The Walmart research status means that it has been submitted to Walmart and it's awaiting resolution. This is now no longer editable. So again, we said you can save a draft and you can go back by clicking the previous button to add in more stuff. You can go forward and backward through that process. But once you send it to Walmart, obviously you can't make edits because Walmart needs a static thing to be able to kind of, judge the validity, but once it's sent back and put under supplier action obviously it will be editable. What that means is just that Walmart wants you to add more proof of documentation or that there's something missing sent for revision. Right. That would be another way of saying the same thing. Just instead of instead of them saying you haven't provided enough information, what they're saying is we think you've provided the wrong information. 
 
And again, miscommunications kind of abound in this space. So, checking Walmart's work on that could be pretty important to the dispute must be updated with a comment or new file within seven days. So that's the key kind of timeframe for that. Otherwise it will be moved to denied or canceled. 
 
So, again, depends on the size of your team. It depends on the, the size of the company that you're working with, how many of these you might have on hand at any given time, but prioritizing those that That are in supplier action can be very important. If if some new kind of detail is required in order to get a huge deduction paid back. 
 
So canceled again canceled is different from denied importantly, but it can kind of. in terms of the actual meaning there, there can be some overlap. The supplier failed to prove why why the deduction should be repaid or supplier withdrew the dispute on their own. So maybe Walmart sends it back asking for more information and you realize that the information that you would need to give is is actually something that would prove that the deduction was valid. 
 
So you let it get canceled. You let it just kind of timeout or Walmart will cancel it after that time period anyways. Right. So that's kind of more of an ideal version of it. There could be somewhere It slips your mind. The seven day period happens and Walmart cancels it for that reaso the existing dispute is finished. 
 
The claim line can be disputed again by creating a new dispute. So, that's a key difference between between them as well denied supplier failed to prove why deduction should be repaid. Right? And again, that that wording is a little bit vague and that's wording that Walmart would like to kind of keep in there, right? 
 
There, there can be disagreements about what actually qualifies as proof documentation or not. So, the existing dispute is finished. Claim line can be disputed again by creating a new dispute as well. So, this is something that, for example, in Walmart with their shortage deductions you basically get one shot, sorry, at, at Amazon with their shortage deductions, you basically get one shot to dispute. 
 
It's gotta be done within a very short window. And if that doesn't work, then it can go into settlement at Walmart. Basically you want to do a, a rapid fire approach. You know, if something gets denied, if something gets canceled and you believe that it's not valid, you can dispute again approved. 
 
This is the ideal situation. Walmart has agreed that the claim line was invalid and will be repaid or corrected. Pretty straightforward. So negative approvals are kind of complicated. Walmart can approve a dispute and then re deduct under a different claim code. Visible as a negative approval sequence. 
 
Basically what all that this means is Walmart is kind of admitting that they may have used the wrong code, the wrong deduction code, but that you still owe them money for a different sort of thing. And again, this, I want to be careful what I'm kind of insinuating or not. On walmart's behalf, sometimes this is totally legitimate. 
 
Sometimes what appears as a shortage is actually damaged goods or some kind of problem with the labeling or something like that as well. So, It is a difficult process across the whole supply chain to, for, for Walmart and for the supplier to be able to keep their fingers on the pulse of what's actually happening on the floor, right? 
 
That's what the deduction codes are designed to do, but sometimes they can be misapplied. There is a possibility too that this is something that would happen with deduction codes that are similar to each other, right? So we talk about 25s all the time shortages and no shipment being made. In the case of the 25s there's a lot of overlap there. And again, this is, I don't want to insinuate anything on Walmart's behalf, but the similarity of those codes could be something that would make them present and negative approvals to use the Vegas. I sound like a lawyer. I swear. But yeah, that you want to be paying attention to having a, having a kind of a bird's eye view of what the deduction codes are how they're kind of grouped together, what the similar ones are to each other could be really helpful dealing with negative approvals. 
 
If what you feel is that Walmart is Just kind of switching one out for another. But again, sometimes it's legitimate for sure that Walmart has made a mistake in identifying which mistake the supplier has made. So again, kind of double speak there a little bit, but yeah, it's a, it's a tricky sort of gray area. 
 
To put it lightly, so dispute resolution and updates. I want to kind of go through this pretty quickly so that we have as much time as possible for questions. The average approval times. And again, we've got a little note here talking about how this is a little bit different now. In the good old days, 51 days was the average approval time and 32% were approved in two days, right? 
 
And then from there you would have about seven days to receive payment. But the, the process that we've been talking about with settlement disputing going away. These numbers have changed. And as far as I'm aware of that, I've last checked, they're changing kind of all the time. So there's a huge backlog, I think of disputes and some people are still waiting to get paid for stuff that's like six months. So I, this 51 days number is, I don't think accurate anymore. If you're looking at that and you're saying that's crazy you're not alone. As far as, as far as I know, APDP is overwhelmed right now and and Walmart is kind of overwhelmed too. That's not to say that they should have that they they shouldn't have been better prepared for it. It's just kind of what happened, right? Huge suppliers had were relying on settlement. And whenever it went away, had to hire whole teams to do their disputes. So, we know that, we know that the, the portal is overwhelmed. And those approval times have changed, kind of, as a result of that as well. 
 
Also, yesterday there was this update that you may have seen in Retail Link. that is basically sort of clarifying code deductions, if I remember correctly. So, these are some some updates that will give you a sense of what is actually important for disputing individual codes. 
 
As Allie mentioned at the beginning, you'll be getting a copy of this slide deck in the next couple of days, but this notification will appear, should appear in any of your retail links. So if you have access to that go ahead and take a screenshot of that. Read it really carefully. Some of these changes are what we were. 
 
It caused a little bit of a of a moment of pause for us where we had to kind of reevaluate what these codes are actually saying and which dispute documents are legitimate for disputing under those individual codes. But but yes, these are, these are also, I should say, these are codes that aren't super common. 
 
So it's not going to be a major sea change in that for your business or it shouldn't maybe for some businesses more than others but very important to be aware of as well. So we thought we'd just kind of throw that in here to again. Don't feel like you need to screenshot it right away. Because it's on retail link and you'll be getting a copy of this in the next few days as well too. 
 
Okay, Allie. Do we have some questions?  
 
[00:35:24] Allie Troung: We've got a lot of questions, so I'm going to go through these. And I also was doing just some research just to kind of make sure I have all my ducks in a row on this. So, I've got things to copy in the chat as well. Peter, I can add my two cents, but you also I'd like to hear what you have to think. 
 
So, we had Carol say, why are descriptions always needed when it comes to completing a... dispute in APDP when you, it already knows the claim code. So the example would be the, it already knows that it's a code 22, but why would we need to add a description or even understand what that, that code means? 
 
[00:36:04] Peter Spaulding: Yeah. So I think understanding what the code means is essential for doing validity checks on deductions. So that is I think kind of the answer to that portion. In terms of the description, I would say I can't really speak on Walmart's behalf, but I would say just that all that's really happening in this whole process is miscommunications across the supply chain. 
 
And. Where whenever possible where you're given kind of like free reign to express your understanding of it I think that's a good thing, right? So being able to kind of describe it as, as discreetly as possible, I think is, is beneficial in that sense for you and, and will kind of help win those back now there there's, there's maybe a, an extent to which you don't want to show your hands. But again, the, the deduction code will tell you what Walmart thinks you did wrong. The description will be your opportunity to tell Walmart what you think they got wrong and telling you what you got wrong. If that makes sense. That's a very kind of roundabout way of saying it. 
 
But that's my understanding of it. Allie, I don't know if you want to add anything to that.  
 
[00:37:15] Allie Troung: Yeah, we had kind of a follow up question there as well. So, someone asked, yeah. Is there a future webinar that will go over the Walmart deduction codes in detail? We don't have a webinar necessarily that covers all of them, but I just sent our free guide that you can download that covers in detail 75 plus Walmart deduction codes and just to play the game you got to know the rules. 
 
So this guide covers, you know, what it means, why you might have received it, places to go look for root cause, how you can dispute it, what dispute documentation has been proven to work. So those are just some of the things that are, that are in there as well. Other questions we have because we've got a lot coming in. 
 
So I'm looking at the chat and the Q& A is how do you dispute claims not visible in APDP? And Carol also says like if there's no claim doc, it's not appearing in APDP. And Peter, I'll have you add some of what you think as well, but I kind of did some digging and I'll paste some of my answer in here because I was typing some things up as well. 
 
But the first thing is, it might be a timing issue. If the check just posted, you need about 72 hours, we usually say. So if it's too early, you might not see it pulling over into a PDP app. Another part of that is, and I'm pasting this in the chat, is how are you searching for that claim code? So let's say you know that it should be in the system. 
 
It's was a check from like two months ago or a claim from two months ago. If you're searching for that claim dispute, search for the claim number to see all the specific lines on that claim. And if you still can't find the claim record, search for the invoice record with the same negative dollar amount in APDP, and that might get you to where you're going. 
 
If you still can't find it, I would say check to see if the claim date is past two years old, or if for some reason it got set to the future, these things can happen. Neither of those scenarios are going to be disputable in APDP, and if you are still having issues and you can't find it, I'm gonna paste another thing in the chat and that is the EBS the enterprise business service helpline and that I've I've got all of their contacts. You should not have a problem finding them as well as just filing a ticket at Walmart and kind of pointing in the best way. We found that when working with Walmart, it's best to use EBS. 
 
That's usually they know how to get you where you're going. So that would be my suggestion there. I know that it can be difficult. Okay, so here I am pasting in the help link and the EBS phone number. And then this is their direct email and their info form as well. So if you still can't find it based on kind of what I've spoken about, then it's probably an issue on Walmart side and Hopefully, they can get that sorted out for you. So, 
 
[00:40:21] Peter Spaulding: that's great. The only thought that I had with that question was about timing. So I think, but I think that all of those other caveats are really important to to remember. And I wanted to call out also that. You will be getting a copy of the recording and a copy of the slide deck, but you will not be getting a copy of the chat. 
 
So, definitely click on all those links if you want, if you want to keep the deduction code resource on hand and definitely save those that contact information for EBS as well. If you haven't seen that before.  
 
[00:40:51] Allie Troung: Yes. All right. I'm going through the Q& A and then I'll, I'll pop back over to the chat because I know I've just flooded it with a bunch of things. 
 
So we've got one participant who says we're receiving deductions on our payments. We can see them in APIS without details, but we cannot find them in APDP to dispute them. How would you recommend disputing these types of claims or at least getting backup? And I think that I'll just kind of run through that again because I know I said a lot of things. 
 
Could be a timing issue. See if there's any information on the claim. If you're seeing it in APIS, so maybe it's a certain type of claim, kind of like what we talked about on the previous slide. There's certain claims that you cannot dispute. In APDP. So if it is a code, I believe it's 96 or 69 and a code 53, you probably won't see those. 
 
And you do actually have to reach out to the EBS contact center or. If it's a 69 speeding that through high radius. So that's why I would recommend downloading that Walmart Deductions Code book, or we're going to post our emails in a second. If you have a code and you're like, I don't know what to do with code 64, then email us and we can, we can point you in the right direction. 
 
Yeah.  
 
[00:42:09] Peter Spaulding: Since it's something that's kind of coming up from multiple people, I do wonder if there's some if there's some delay in integrating that into APDP as well as the delay with paying back through APDP. So it's something that I'll, I'll run by our Walmart team to see if that's, if they're seeing that on their end too, because. 
 
They're in those numbers all the time.  
 
[00:42:32] Allie Troung: Yeah, I've seen as earliest as like 72 hours is really safe up to like seven days. So if you're still not seeing something that should have been entered into APDP, my suggestion is to go to that EBS contact. You can do their email, their phone number or file a claim ticket if you know that you should be seeing a claim come through. Got another question, Peter, on APDP. So, if we escalated claim to dispute and it has not been resolved for months, is it still in submitted status?  
 
[00:43:09] Peter Spaulding: I don't know. Could you read that question again?  
 
[00:43:12] Allie Troung: Yeah, and maybe you can also toggle back to the different status types. 
 
So, if a claim is... Escalated in a dispute, but it's not been resolved. They're asking, is it still sitting in submitted or do they have to take some kind of action?  
 
[00:43:29] Peter Spaulding: Yeah, that's not I'm not familiar with that process. I don't know if you can speak to that at all, Allie.  
 
[00:43:38] Allie Troung: I've been sitting kind of hypothesizing what this one would would be. 
 
So I have a couple theories. So when it comes to escalating a dispute that has not been resolved. First off, you're going to see a longer lead time because of the influx of suppliers who have come from settlement. So part of this may be we have to bite the bullet and things are going to take a lot longer. 
 
When it comes to If you've escalated it and it's not been resolved, you should be able to see where it's sitting in this display, depending on where your claims are. So, let's say, for instance, it's sitting in Supplier Action. If you've submitted it and it's been bumped back to Supplier Action, or it's been bumped back to the other status that I believe it's like Supplier Review or Revision. 
 
Then yes, you need to take action and there should be notes in there, but if it's still sitting in Walmart research, then you shouldn't have to touch it. And honestly, it's probably just taking long. So that would be kind of my best theory on what's going on. And that's what we've heard with a lot of suppliers is that they've escalated claims and it hasn't necessarily gone through another tactic to escalate that claim is to reach out to EBS or this is depending, and I say this with caution on the amount or type of dispute this is. If it's a hefty fine and it's creating other business issues, you can always talk with your buyer and see if they can escalate that process for you. Again, that's kind of last resort. I would do some of the other things I mentioned before. 
 
And for sure, if you're asking for help, start with that EBS number and email that I listed. 
 
[00:45:21] Peter Spaulding: Yeah, and as anything goes with buyers, we always kind of, say it's sort of up to you. You know, what is your relationship with your buyer? Like, is that a kind of conversation that you've had before? Or is that something that would be that your relationship with your buyer doesn't kind of really allow for, I guess, to put it that way. 
 
Yeah, depends on your business, depends on your relationship with your buyer too. 
 
[00:45:44] Allie Troung: Yeah Exactly. Okay, we have another Q&A question, and we're getting right up close to time, so I'm only going to be able to answer probably one or two more of these. How can you dispute a payment shortage on an invoice? An invoice is submitted via EDI. 
 
The data received by Walmart for the invoice was not correct when compared to the purchase order. How do we get the remaining balance from Walmart? Peter, I kind of have some theories. Again, when these pop up, I read them. I can answer it if you want, or if you want to take a crack at it. 
 
[00:46:15] Peter Spaulding: Go for it. 
 
Tell us your theories. Okay.  
 
[00:46:20] Allie Troung: How can you dispute the payment shortage on an invoice? We kind of went over that section, but that that is if everything goes perfect. It kind of sounds like I would want to know what type of shortage it is. And I would point you in the direction there if the data received by Walmart for the invoice was not correct when compared to the purchase order, I'd like to know what the root cause of that is. 
 
And that would be helpful for understanding if it's supplier responsibility versus if it's something you could pass along to your EDIs. your EDI team if that's a third party or back to Walmart. So we'll send this deck out so you can see how you can actually dispute via invoice. It's pretty easy in APDP, but that's what I would say is I want to know exactly what type of shortage claim it is. 
 
[00:47:13] Peter Spaulding: Yeah. The only, sorry. Go ahead. The only shout out I was going to give is if there's a, if there's purchase order errors that miscommunication could have a, like a widespread effect. And so that could result in a shortage deduction that is invalid or not. But it could also it could also be kind of like a SQEP violation from phase one. 
 
So, watch out for that. We didn't talk about stacking fines. But if you if you're not familiar with SQEP, do some, do some Googling or go to our website and read up on that a little bit. The phase one deep dive is the one that covers PO accuracy. So that may be, again, we'd, we'd want to, to be able to dig into it a little bit more. 
 
It sounds like there's a shortage deduction that is just an AP deduction that's happening there, but it may be connected to a different issue as well.  
 
[00:48:06] Allie Troung: Last thing I'll say, because we did get a lot of engagement in in the chat is Veronica asked, Is there a size limit for attaching files or when uploading supporting documents? 
 
I don't think that there's a size limit necessarily, but make sure that you're adding the correct types of files. We've had a lot of suppliers have issues with, not uploading those. And I believe we listed that and it's listed on APDP as well. So, one last thing, cause I want to answer everyone's questions is if you're getting things moved to denied, I see Bob, you said, I have had a supply response dispute lapsed after 14 days, at which time the status went to denied. 
 
You can dispute again at Walmart. You can dispute about three, four times just include different proof documentation. Maybe kind of look at it from a different angle, see if there's anything else you can include. So hopefully we got to everyone's questions. I wanted to prioritize getting that done, but we are running short on time, so I will close this out. 
 
Thank you all for engaging in the chat. We really appreciate those questions. That challenges us a little bit. And Peter, thank you so much for walking us through that great content. So we're going to transition here. These are our emails. If you'd like to get in contact with us about a question you might have, or you can always find us at supplypike.com. We'd be happy to help, but we're going to transition from the content into our product preview. We've got Lucas. He is a product expert. I'm really excited to have him on. He is joining us and he's actually going to start sharing his screen and walking us through the product. So as I mentioned before, Lucas is available afterwards. 
 
If you want to connect more on a personal level, he can talk about your specific business needs. So I'll hand it over to you, Lucas. I'm really glad you're here.  
 
[00:49:59] Lukas Ulner: Yeah. Happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Hello everyone. And yeah, like she said, I'm a member of the enterprise sales team here, and I'll be giving you a quick walkthrough of our deductions app from Walmart. 
 
So. Whenever you hop into the app, the first thing that you'll be greeted with is a nice overview of the current status of your deductions with Walmart. So you're able to see those that are received, how much you have actionable, away your payment, et cetera, and your win rates so far. We also break it down for you by claim code. 
 
So you're able to see which codes are having the most severe dollar impact your business. And just like I think she linked in the chat earlier, we also make accessible from here all of our years of research on what every single one of the kind of vaguely worded claim codes actually mean. So if you want to be able to click into that, you can and see what Walmart wants to see for each one how you can optimally avoid it, etc. 
 
Also from the dashboard page here we give you a little bit more of insights into them over time and by item and location this helpful insights to try to dig into the root cause of where and why some of these can be occurring. The actual meat of the application though here for the streamlining of your processes is in the deductions tab. 
 
So the way our platform works is we connect with retail link data. So that's how we're pulling all of this then and showing this to you here. And then we connect with wherever your proof documents are located for your disputing of claims. So that could be either the carrier portal or maybe like a SharePoint, Google Drive, whatever it is, as long as your documents digitally exist in some form of it or another. 
 
There's probably a pretty easy way that we'll be able to ingest those into our platform. So we then scan those documents for the proper PO number and then associate it with the claim it belongs to. And then with that, you're able to select from here in bulk up to a hundred records at a time to be able to just dispute and be done with it. 
 
If you actually want to completely take this off your plate, you're able to go in and set these to auto dispute. So all these most common codes were able to toggle on. And as soon as the proof documents appear in whichever system they normally do, our system will catch those associate them with the right claim, send it on to Walmart, and it won't be your problem at all. 
 
Now. We also let you select by validity criteria, and we do some validity analysis of your deductions. We ingest your ASN data, for example, and we'll compare, you know, what was the ASN what do you say you shipped, what was the invoice for, and what did the warehouse claim to receive? Now, if the ASN matches the invoice, and then the warehouse is claiming it short, it's probably invalid. 
 
Walmart doesn't penalize you, though, for disputing everything, so most of our customers do. And you're also able to, like, set a maximum dollar threshold if you want to have a special manual review of those over over a certain amount. Hopping back over the deductions tab though, you're able to track them as they're in progress here. 
 
As you see in Walmart research, and then when they're finally has a decision made on them, they're archived, whether they're approved, denied, approved for what amount. And then scrolling down here, you can see that these little green icons indicate that it's actually been paid back versus just simply being approved. 
 
And clicking into this here, you're able to see exactly which check date and check number it was paid out on. I understand that that can be a bit of a pain to track down sometimes. Now, that's pretty much our deductions app in a nutshell you'll look better view here, you can click in for some greater granularity into each single claim and see this is where the documents appear as well that automatically float into the system but you're able to just click from here also for more info in the context of, you know, what code 22 or whatever else is. 
 
So it's a pretty straightforward tool. It's about it for the high level view is going to give, but if you want to have a further conversation about it, I'll be in a zoom room and you can request that link from Allie and we can, we can talk more. Thank you everyone so much.  
 
[00:53:56] Allie Troung: Yeah. Message me and Lucas will be waiting in a zoom room here in a second. 
 
If you want to talk more about how you can get that product connected to your data and it takes. Lucas, like one, two days and no IT intervention, which is great. 
 
Sweet. Well, if anyone is interested, I'd love to send that meeting link over. And if not today, we can always get you connected. To Lucas after to get on a demo with your data in our application. So with that, thank you all for joining. Thank you, Lucas, for walking us through that product sneak peek. 
 
And we really appreciate everyone who's been on today. Thanks guys. 
 

Hosts

  • Melodie Hays

    Melodie Hays

    VP of SupplierWiki

    Melodie leads the education efforts at SupplyPike – being the creator of SupplierWiki, she has written articles, facilitated webinars, and developed the site.

    Read More
  • Stacy Tan

    Stacy Tan

    SVP of Retail Insights

    Stacy is the SVP of Retail Insights for SupplyPike. She brings a decade of knowledge and experience working directly with Walmart merchandising teams.

    Read More

Presentation

Resource

Walmart's APDP 101

Access the Walmart's APDP 101 Slide Deck to learn how you can continue disputing deductions in the Account Payable Dispute Portal App like a pro.

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About SupplyPike

SupplyPike makes disputing retailer deductions more streamlined and efficient by automatically retrieving, organizing, and storing your shipping documents in one place. Integrating with all major retailers and shipping companies, SupplyPike makes finding any POD or BOL simple. Learn more about how SupplyPike can cut your disputing time down from 30 minutes to 30 seconds

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