Managing deductions

Distributors often deduct money from invoices to account for routine discounts, such as those given on your product during a promotion, or for fees, such as those for short shipments or incorrect labeling on a pallet. Monitoring your deductions helps you keep track of where you money is going and reduce preventable deductions to save costs and minimize disruptions for distributors and customers alike.

Using Crisp to manage your deductions allows you to easily review backup files for deductions, making reviewing and categorizing invoices a snap.

Note: Initially the deductions tool will contain 6 months worth of historical deductions data and 3 months of historical backup.

Steps:

1. From the main menu at the left side of the screen select Deductions or Deductions Tool (in UNFI Insights). 
   The Deductions Overview page appears with a list of payments from your distributor.
   
   
2. Select a payment to review and categorize the payment transactions.
   
   A list of transactions appears.
   
   
3. Select the transaction you want to review or categorize.
   
   
   A screen appears that includes the PDF backup (if available) on the right and options for categorization on the left.
   
   
4. To categorize a transaction:
   
   
   • Select a transaction type (e.g., Deduction).
     
     
     
   • Review the deduction amount.
     
     Hint: If the invoice lists deductions of more than one type, you can click the Split button and split the transaction into multiple amounts that you can categorize separately. For more: Splitting deductions.
   • Choose one of the following deduction types to categorize the transaction:
      
     • Compliance Fees-General deductions taken for compliance issues. 
     • Compliance: Short Ship-Compliance deductions charged for delivering less product than invoiced amount.
     • Everyday Agreement: Early Payment Discount- Discount taken for paying an invoice before the due date.
     • Everyday Agreement: Everyday Low Price-Deductions taken for an agreement on lower prices that is not tied to a specific promotion period.
     • Everyday Agreement: Spoils Allowance-Deductions for spoiled product.
     • Fairshare- Deductions take for merchandising fees.
     • Freight Fees-Deductions charged for picking up product.
     • New Distribution- Discounts taken for newly distributed products.
     • Other Fees- This type can be used for miscellaneous fees deducted that do not fit into any other deduction type.
     • Promotion-Discounts taken for products on promotion.
       
       
   • If you want, fill out any of the following optional fields:
     
     • Deduction Start/End Date: Allows you to track a time period related to the deduction, such as the start and end dates of a contract or promotion period.
     • Retailer: The retailer associated with the deduction.
     • Product Category: The category of the product associated with the deduction. This field allows you to include this deduction in the breakdown of deductions by category on the Deductions dashboard. 
     • Product Quantity: The number of products associated with the deduction.
     • Event Association: An internal identifier for the event associated with the deduction, such as a promotion.
     • Source Description: A description of the source of the deduction, such as MCB chargeback.
     • Notes: Any additional comments you want to add to the deduction. Notes appear in the search results for deductions, so you can use this field to tag deductions with search terms, such as the name of a person who should review them.
       
       
   • Select one of the following a status flags, then click the Save button.
     
     
     • Accept-Puts the line item in the Done- Accepted status, which indicates it has been approved and requires no further action.
     • Review- Puts the line item in the Under Review status, which indicates that it needs further analysis before it is accepted.
     • Dispute-Puts the line item in the Disputed status, which indicates that a dispute needs to be field for the deduction. Note: Currently, the deductions tool does not file disputes automatically. You must file disputes through your normal process with UNFI.

Your deduction is now categorized and tagged with a status. You can repeat this process to categorize other deductions that appear on the Deductions Overview screen.
Hint: When you categorize deductions with this tool, you can see a breakdown of how your deduction dollars were spent on the Deductions dashboard and dig into deduction details to find out what is driving unexpected deductions.