Understanding the Recoveries Dashboard
The Recoveries Dashboard provides a clear, accurate view of the dollars your business has actually received back from retailers after disputes, along with related adjustments such as mitigations, partial payments, and rededucts.
Importantly, this dashboard only includes recoveries that occurred through disputes initiated through SPS. This ensures that everything shown in the dashboard corresponds directly to activity managed and tracked within SPS Commerce.
The term "Recovered" includes:
Paid: The retailer approved your dispute and actually repaid it on a check
Mitigated: The retailer approved the dispute before withholding the deduction, preventing the loss from occurring in the first place.
This article explains the key concepts used on the dashboard: Recovered, Approved, Mitigations, Rededucts, Partial Payments, and how dates and amounts are calculated.
Recovered vs. Approved: What’s the Difference?
While Approved and Recovered amounts are closely related, they are intentionally not the same and in most cases, Recovered will be lower than Approved.
This is by design.
Approved represents the total dollar amount of disputes that retailers have agreed are valid (gross amount).
Recovered represents the portion of those dollars that have been:
Directly influenced by SPS Revenue Recovery, and
Actually received by the customer as payment (net amount received)
Recovered reflects real, realized financial impact—not just what was approved, but what was actually paid.
Why Approved and Recovered May Not Match
We've taken a lot of effort to ensure we do not overstate the impact of SPS Commerce. Because of our conservative approach, there are several common scenarios where these values will differ:
Payment received before dispute approval
In some cases, a retailer may repay a deduction before the dispute is formally approved. Even if a dispute was submitted, we do not count this as Recovered when we cannot definitively attribute the repayment to the dispute action. This ensures we do not overstate the impact of SPS Commerce.
Partial repayment by the retailer
A retailer may approve a dispute for a certain amount but only pay back a portion of it. In this case:
The full amount is counted as Approved
Only the amount actually received is counted as Recovered
Rededucts
A Rededuct occurs when a retailer repays a deduction, then later issues a new deduction for essentially the same event. Rededucts are not included in Approvals but they are included as negative Recovery Amounts.
Key Term: Recovered
On the Recoveries Dashboard, Recovered refers to disputes that meet all of the following:
The dispute was initiated through SPS Commerce
It was approved by the retailer
The retailer actually paid (or offset, which becomes a mitigation) the deduction
And SPS reflects the true amount recovered, not just the approved amount
Recovery amounts use the actual payment date from the retailer, not the date the dispute was submitted or approved.
Recovered totals exclude any disputes initiated outside SPS Commerce.
Key Term: Mitigations
A Mitigation occurs when a deduction or chargeback is disputed and approved before the retailer withholds it from a check. Without the proactive dispute and approval, money would have been withheld from a check but since no money was ever withheld, there is no explicit repayment date.
For mitigations, the dashboard uses the approval date because that is when the deduction was effectively prevented.
Mitigations handled outside SPS are not included.
Key Term: Rededucts
A Rededuct occurs when a retailer repays a deduction, then later issues a new deduction for essentially the same event under a different code.
The dashboard accounts for rededucts because:
Rededucts reverse prior recoveries
Rededucts ensure more accurate and transparent reporting
Rededucts prevent inflated recovery totals
Rededucts are included only when they relate to disputes initiated through SPS Commerce.
How Dates and Amounts Work Across the Dashboard
The dashboard uses the effective financial event date, based on the type of outcome:
Recoveries: actual payment date and reflect only actual dollars paid
Mitigations: retailer approval date
Rededucts: date the new deduction was withheld from a check
Outside-SPS disputes and recoveries: excluded from all totals and charts on the Recovery Dashboard
What You’ll See on the Dashboard
Recovered with SPS Commerce
The total amount your business has regained, accounting for partial payments and rededucts, and preserved through mitigations from disputes initiated through SPS Commerce
Recovered by Retailer
A donut chart showing recovered dollars by retailer.
Recovered by Month
Visualizes recovered dollars over time, segmented by retailer.
Retailer History
Indicates when your business started using SPS for each retailer.
Documents Matched
Shows the total number of shipping documents matched and attached to deductions via SPS automation.
Summary
The Recoveries Dashboard provides a transparent, accurate view of all dollars recovered through SPS Commerce-initiated disputes. By accounting for partial repayments, mitigations, and rededucts, and by tying all amounts to actual payment or mitigation date, the dashboard gives you a reliable picture of the financial outcomes achieved through dispute activity with SPS Commerce.