Reclaim Your
Retail Revenue
An effective retail recovery audit requires industry knowledge and appreciation of each client’s vendor funding strategy.
While most retail organizations have systems and internal tools to track deal activity and price changes, most lack the sophistication to track dynamic changes in deal or cost parameters, such as start and end dates, new UPCs, unusual buying patterns, and more. With buyer-vendor negotiations frequently occurring via email, details may be omitted from deal tracking systems, creating significant gaps that lead to lost funding.
Through our extensive retail experience, comprehensive audit approach, and proprietary software leveraging AI and machine learning, we will identify and recover significantly more dollars than internal processes alone.
Our team of recovery audit experts have performed thousands of Recovery Audits for the retail industry, so they know where to look to find lost profits that may have been missed.
Pricing
In recent years, our clients have seen unprecedented price fluctuation activity, driven by supply chain challenges, consumer demands, and regulatory implications. In response, suppliers and retailers have been forced to change their prices frequently, leading to pricing errors and lost profits. SAS will perform a thorough review of all purchasing, inventory, and price change data to identify potential price discrepancies and anomalies. They will be analyzed for validity, enabling clients to reclaim previously lost retail revenue.
Examples of pricing errors identified in our Recovery Audit review include:
- Price increase or decrease without proper notification lead time
- Orders in transit at the time of a price change
- Product shorted prior to price change
- Pricing based on size of shipment
- Price protection
- Product returned at the incorrect price
Promotional Allowances
Suppliers offer allowances, reducing the gross price of their products either as a promotion or to encourage bulk purchasing. Identification of allowance errors can be complex and requires knowledge of the industry and strong analytical skills. Our audit and recovery process allows us to maximize profit recovery, ensuring that your well-negotiated promotions are invoiced and paid accurately.
Allowance errors found during a Recovery Audit include:
- Allowances not included on the invoice
- Supplier billbacks not calculated properly
- Allowances missed on family items
- Allowances for the early buy of product
- Allowances for promoted products, new products, or new stores
- Allowances offered in lieu of payment on defective products
- Missed lump sum allowances
Accruals And Rebates
Many suppliers offer incentives to achieve certain sales volume levels. The formulas to calculate the funds range from simple to very complex. Our audits ensure these agreements are carefully analyzed and all earned accruals and rebates have been collected.
Some variables which should be accounted for when analyzing the accuracy of these agreements include:
- Gross or net cost of product
- Time period based on purchase, receipt, or invoice date
- Returned product
- New items
Discounts
Cash discounts may be offered as an incentive for timely invoice payment. These discounts are not always readily identifiable within the client’s data. Some clients net them into the price, track them in a separate system, or reconcile them on a periodic basis.
We collect and analyze all available data and review contracts to perform a thorough recovery audit, identifying any earned discounts not captured.
Examples of potential discount errors found during a recovery audit:
- Cash discount not included on invoice or included at incorrect rate
- Cash discount not calculated on the gross amount of the product
- Discounts erroneously not deducted
- Discount added back for returned product
- Early pay / anticipation discounts missed
- Discounts on credit memos
I think in our industry there has been a tendency over the years to forget that at the core, we are a client service provider. I love working for SAS because they understand this. It is well known throughout the company that everyone’s goal is to deliver exceptional client service in all we do. It is a pleasure to end a work week knowing you have been a true partner to your client.
Linda Oneufer – Audit Director