Why would I submit Shortage Disputes without any Shipping Documents?
SupplyPike's first recommendation is to submit any shortage deduction that finds a Shipping Document (Proof of Delivery or Bill of Lading) if you have any reason to believe you're owed money. This is what we do today, utilizing Auto Dispute to find deductions that are "Ready" to dispute.
However, there are scenarios where a Shortage Deduction's shipping document was never found or attached, but you still have a chance of winning your money back. Before, that meant you had to rely on manual efforts to submit disputes in these scenarios. Typically, this dispute process without shipping documents will experience lower win rates, but will still increase recovery.
How is SupplyPike automatically disputing shortages in these scenarios?
Once a deduction code is enabled to Auto Dispute without Recommended Documents, SupplyPike will check all deductions nightly to see if any deductions should be disputed without recommended documents. The deductions must have existed in SupplyPike for a pre-set amount of time, configurable in Settings, to allow for shipping documents to be searched for first, and the deduction must meet any Minimum and Maximum Amount criteria selected in Settings. Once the relevant deductions are found, we will utilize the Walmart Mass Dispute Creation (MDC) process to submit the shortage dispute without any attached documentation.
Why would SupplyPike use the Mass Dispute Creation process?
Our goal is to ensure that suppliers get every chance to be paid what they're owed on invoices sent to Walmart. That being said, there are scenarios where a proof document is never found, but we have grounds to dispute it. In this scenario, we're eliminating the process of manually submitting disputes for these shortage deductions, using a method where Walmart doesn't require a document to proceed.
It's important to SupplyPike to help you save time and increase recovery as much as possible, while also navigating the retailer's disputing processes. Finding and attaching shipping documents will continue to be our first priority. This new automation within SupplyPike is a secondary or backup effort to reclaim additional dollars you're owed, through a process that Walmart allows.
What are the typical dispute outcomes of using Mass Dispute Creation (MDC)?
The success rate for submitting shortages via mdc has historically been a little bit lower than processing a dispute with a shipping document, but are still worth the effort if a shipping document isn't found for a particular deduction. Walmart will either, approved the dispute in a timely fashion, or will end up in a Supplier Action status where they will ask for further proof. At this point, if a shipping document is still unavailable, utilizing the Inventory Received Report that SupplyPike builds and automatically provides in the deduction details page would be optimal, especially if the receiving data denotes that Walmart owes you payment for those goods.