Table of Contents
What is Settlement?
What is the current status of Settlement?
What are the rules/limitations around Settlement?
How does Settlement work?
How does disputing claims individually (via APDP) compare to the Settlement process?
What is Settlement?
Settlement (aka "Bulk Dispute Resolution Process") allows suppliers to submit a single request for repayment for all Accounts Payable (off-invoice) deductions of certain types for a specific time period.
Once a settlement has been finalized, all deductions of those types for that time period are considered closed and therefore cannot be revisited.
What is the current status of Settlement?
Walmart has announced the end of Settlement disputing for all suppliers in favor of individual claim disputing through APDP (Accounts Payable Dispute Portal app in Retail Link)
This transition will be official on May 1, 2023.
If you have a pending settlement, your settlement coordinator will be reaching out to agree on final check dates.
What are the rules/limitations around Settlement?
A settlement can only encompass a single 6-digit supplier number, therefore multiple supplier numbers should not be combined into a single settlement request.
A single settlement request cannot exceed a 90-day time period. Most suppliers follow standard calendar quarters for settlement requests. (i.e. - a Q1 settlement for all applicable deductions from 1/1/22 - 3/31/22)
The timeframe should be agreed upon by Walmart and the supplier prior to submitting the settlement request.
Timeframes are defined by CHECK dates, not claim dates or invoice dates.
ONLY the following AP deduction codes can be included in a settlement:
21 - Concealed Shortage
22 - Merchandise Billed Not Shipped
24 - Carton Shortage/Freight Bill Signed Short
25 - No Merchandise Received for Invoice
28 - Carton Damage – Frt. Bill Signed Damaged
30 - Duplicate Billing
87 - Other
Settlement is only for Walmart US brick-and-mortar orders.
A supplier can only have one settlement in progress at a time; a new settlement cannot be submitted until the outstanding one is finalized and the payment for the settlement clears.
A settlement request cannot be submitted until all invoices from the specified time period have been paid/closed.
Depending on the supplier’s payment terms, this could be 30, 60, or 90+ days after the quarter ends.
A supplier who is in debit balance (owes Walmart money) can’t submit a settlement until the balance is resolved
At least 100 deductions must be taken in a time period to submit a settlement.
If a supplier is currently on settlement, they cannot submit individual disputes for the above deduction codes via APDP. All open settlements must be finalized and the supplier must contact Walmart to request to move off of the BDR program before disputing individually.
APDP will prevent disputes from being created if the claim is from a time period that is under the settlement.
Suppliers must stay on settlement for at least 12 months, or until the latest settlement is finalized.
Walmart will only communicate with the supplier for settlements, no third parties on behalf of a supplier.
The following scenarios cannot be included in a settlement request:
Walmart Canada suppliers
Direct Import suppliers
Walmart.com DSV deductions
Returns Center claims
Accounts Receivable chargebacks
Co-ops
OTIF, SQEP, WRAP
Post Audits
Cash Discounts
Allowances
Pricing disputes
Traffic/freight claims
How does Settlement work?
Suppliers complete the Bulk Dispute Resolution worksheet.
Information for completing the spreadsheet can be pulled directly from check lines in APIS.
Submit the completed spreadsheet to apgfrsettle@wal-mart.com.
If you have questions during the process, email apgfrsettle@wal-mart.com and include the supplier name and supplier number in the subject line.
Walmart reviews settlement requests in the order they are received (please note that there are often significant delays to get a settlement reviewed).
After review, Walmart will email the supplier and either:
Offer no repayment
Offer partial repayment
Offer full repayment (however, this is very rare.)
Suppliers have 5 days to accept or challenge an offer; if a supplier disagrees with a null/partial repayment offer, they can challenge the offer by responding directly to the correspondence.
Walmart will request additional documentation for any records where their internal documentation does not support repayment.
This is most typically a BOL or POD, depending on how the order was shipped.
This back-and-forth process typically takes 5-6 weeks or more.
Final offers after sampling could be more or less than the original offer.
Walmart will submit a final offer that the supplier can accept or reject; if rejected, no payment will be made and the time period will be closed permanently.
Once an offer has been accepted by the supplier, payment will be issued on a check within 10 business days.
Repayment on a check will be under invoice number “22”.
How does disputing claims individually (via APDP) compare to the Settlement process?
Suppliers are virtually always settling for less than the full amount they are owed when on Settlement.
Walmart only issues payments for deductions where their internal data shows that the deduction was invalid. We know from individual disputes (APDP) that a large percentage of deductions can be overturned with valid proof documentation even when Walmart’s internal data is incorrect.
Often these are the types of deductions that would be auto-approved when disputing individually since Walmart’s system sees that they are invalid.
The requirement to wait until a time period is fully closed, wait for a settlement request to be reviewed, then go through the sampling/negotiation process (compounded by the fact that you cannot submit a new settlement until the previous quarter’s settlement is completed) means that payback is typically delayed by 6-9 months or more from the date deductions were actually taken. This is a major hit to cash flow.