Anytime you distribute through KeHE or UNFI you’ll have to deal with deductions, and these add up. I know first hand how confusing the process is to review, manage, and dispute deductions, but having a clear process can literally save you hundreds of thousands of dollars. So where to get started? I’ve been exploring using ChatGPT to automate your deduction management process and want to share 9 ways it can help.
Need help managing distributor deductions and don’t want to do it yourself? Glimpse uses AI to automatically download, categorize, and contest dispute deductions on your behalf. It works faster, costs less, and recoups more money than doing deductions manually or using any existing services. Get a 2 month free trial to see how much money you can save.
It’s important to keep in mind that while ChatGPT can be a great start, it still requires figuring out the best way for it to work for your brand.
1. Automating Deduction Identification and Categorization
- Challenge: You receive numerous deductions from retailers, and manually sorting through them to identify the type (promotional, logistics, or compliance) can be time-consuming.
- Solution: You can train ChatGPT to automatically categorize deductions based on the description provided by retailers. By feeding it past deduction data, ChatGPT can identify patterns and automatically categorize deductions into predefined groups, such as pricing errors, shipping discrepancies, or marketing allowances.
- Sample Prompt: “Here are the deduction details we’ve received from a retailer: [insert deduction description]. Can you help categorize this deduction into one of the following categories: pricing error, shipping discrepancy, or promotional allowance?”
2. Streamlining Communication with Retailers
- Challenge: Resolving deductions often requires extensive back-and-forth communication with retailers, which can be labor-intensive.
- Solution: ChatGPT can generate professional responses to retailers regarding deductions. Whether you need to dispute a deduction, request further documentation, or confirm details, ChatGPT can draft these communications quickly and accurately.
- Sample Prompt: “I need to respond to a retailer about a deduction related to a shipping discrepancy. Could you draft a professional email disputing this deduction and request more documentation to verify the claim?”
3. Analyzing Deduction Trends
- Challenge: Identifying recurring deduction patterns or retailers that frequently claim invalid deductions can be difficult without the proper tools for data analysis.
- Solution: ChatGPT can analyze historical deduction data to uncover trends and anomalies. It can provide summaries or detailed reports, flagging retailers or product categories that consistently result in high deductions.
- Sample Prompt: “Analyze the following deduction data from the past three months: [insert data]. Can you identify any patterns or recurring issues, such as specific retailers frequently claiming invalid deductions or product lines that generate the most deductions?”
4. Generating Reports for Leadership
- Challenge: Creating detailed reports for internal stakeholders can be tedious, especially if the data spans multiple departments.
- Solution: ChatGPT can assist in preparing regular deduction management reports. It can gather information, summarize key metrics, and highlight areas where improvements are needed, saving time on administrative tasks.
- Sample Prompt: “Please create a summary report for last quarter’s deduction activity. Include key metrics like total deductions, top reasons for deductions, the percentage of resolved versus unresolved cases, and highlight any major trends.”
5. Assisting with Deduction Disputes
- Challenge: Retailers often reject deduction disputes because of unclear or insufficient documentation.
- Solution: ChatGPT can assist in creating clear and well-supported dispute cases by drafting arguments and organizing supporting documents. It can suggest how to structure the response to increase the likelihood of a successful resolution.
- Sample Prompt: “We are disputing a deduction for a trade promotion where the retailer claimed more than was agreed upon. Can you help draft a response explaining why the deduction is incorrect and organize the supporting documentation for the dispute?”
6. Training and Support for Team Members
- Challenge: Onboarding new team members into the deduction management process requires extensive training.
- Solution: ChatGPT can serve as a knowledge base, offering new team members quick access to deduction management procedures, best practices, and company-specific policies. It can answer FAQs or provide explanations on complex deduction scenarios.
- Sample Prompt: “What are the key steps a new team member should follow when handling deduction disputes? Can you outline the process for managing deduction claims, including verification, categorization, and communication with retailers?”
7. Improving Internal Collaboration
- Challenge: Deduction management requires cross-departmental collaboration between finance, logistics, sales, and customer service, which can be difficult to coordinate.
- Solution: ChatGPT can act as a central communication hub, helping teams stay on the same page by summarizing deduction status, sharing updates, and prompting action items. It can automate meeting notes, follow-up tasks, or generate project timelines based on deduction-related workflows.
- Sample Prompt: “We have an ongoing deduction management issue involving the finance and logistics teams. Can you help generate a status update summary for the teams, including next steps, pending actions, and upcoming deadlines?”
8. Validating Trade Promotion Deductions
- Challenge: Trade promotions can lead to complex deductions, especially if the terms were not clearly communicated or understood by the retailer.
- Solution: ChatGPT can assist by validating trade promotion deductions against the agreed-upon terms. By integrating with your trade promotion management system, it can cross-reference deductions with promotion terms, ensuring that retailers are claiming the correct amounts.
- Sample Prompt: “Here is a deduction related to a recent trade promotion: [insert details]. Can you check if this deduction aligns with the terms of the promotion and identify any discrepancies between the claim and the agreed-upon terms?”
9. Creating a Deduction Management Knowledge Base
- Challenge: Storing and accessing company-specific information about deduction processes, common issues, and solutions can be difficult without a centralized system.
- Solution: You can use ChatGPT to create a comprehensive deduction management knowledge base that teams can refer to for best practices, deduction examples, dispute resolution guidelines, and more. ChatGPT can answer queries related to deduction management, ensuring team members are aligned and informed.
- Sample Prompt: “I want to build a knowledge base for our deduction management process. Could you provide a general overview of best practices for handling deductions, common deduction categories, and tips for successfully disputing invalid deductions?”
Need help managing distributor deductions and don’t want to do it yourself? Glimpse uses AI to automatically download, categorize, and contest dispute deductions on your behalf. It works faster, costs less, and recoups more money than doing deductions manually or using any existing services. Get a 2 month free trial to see how much money you can save.