Deduction recovery and post-audit defense
for brands selling to the major department stores and big box retail.Contingency only: if we recover nothing, you pay nothing.
No retainer. No software to buy. No minimum. 100% US-based retail recovery experts who recover everything due to you.
Like walking into a tax audit with
a former IRS auditor at your side.
Retailers deduct first and explain later, and at the major department stores a third-party firm usually builds the post-audit claims for them. We know, because we came from one. Those firms often work from limited data, and a large share of their adjustments do not hold up when countered with all the facts.
We have watched chargeback and post-audit adjustments grow year after year at certain major retailers, well past anything right or fair. At some point, enough is enough. That is why we launched Supplier Advocates: to balance the scales. Some deductions are valid. Many are not, and those can be disputed, and we are extremely effective at it, as long as they are caught before the dispute window closes.
Retroactive pricing, allowance, freight, and failure-to-combine claims, arriving a year or two after payment and usually built by a third-party firm.
Adjustments taken against a cost basis or terms that differ from what was agreed, and cash discounts taken without the timely payment that earns them.
Chargebacks on drop-ship orders: compliance, packaging, fulfillment timing, and fees applied outside the vendor agreement.
Markdown support and margin-shortfall charges beyond what was negotiated, including a period's margin and contribution settled in full and then adjusted again after the fact.
Shortage and non-receipt deductions, across every retailer's own codes and labels.
On-time-in-full and routing-guide penalties, a large share of which do not hold up or carry fines far above what is market or reasonable.
Allowances and promotional deductions taken beyond, or after, what was agreed.
Return handling, carrier responsibility, and routing charges.
The same dollars taken twice under two codes.
Specialty distributor programs where fee schedules drift from the contract.
Your team's total time commitment stays close to zero.
Start with a sample: one post-audit claim packet, or simply your latest remittance details showing chargebacks, and we will analyze them. Within five business days you receive a line by line read of which deductions look disputable, which we would pursue first, and a preliminary range. The sample is a quick check; firm numbers come once we are working inside your dispute channels with the retailer's own backup. No upfront charge to you, no obligation.
If the sample shows real value, we engage and you send us everything. We go through all of it systematically, soup to nuts, with virtually no time needed from your team. We do all the hard work: every deduction categorized, the evidence assembled, and every dispute filed and managed through each retailer's own channels, with the tact and professionalism your retailer relationships deserve. We dispute, they reverse, and you get paid or your account is credited.
Our fee is a share of what you actually collect, paid only after the funds reach you. You keep the vast majority of every recovery. No retainer, no minimum, no software to buy: zero risk, and zero cost of capital. Ask us and we will gladly propose a fee percentage for your specific situation.
Deduction recovery has filled up with dashboards, portals, and AI copilots. Most of them organize your losses neatly, then hand the disputing back to you.
Every account is run start to finish by people who spent decades building these exact claims. You get judgment, accountability, and a name you can call, not a license key. Serious in-house tooling does the heavy lifting; it just runs on our desks, not yours.
Move the sliders. The figures use published industry benchmarks; the sources are noted below the calculator.
Two inputs. No email required.
Benchmarks: SPS Commerce and Woodridge Retail Group research on retail deduction rates and invalid chargebacks, and PackageX data on how few deductions suppliers dispute. They are industry estimates, not a promise of recovery. The free teardown replaces these averages with a preliminary read of your own remittance data.
Nothing is filed in your name without your review. Settlement authority stays with you.
Where a retailer's claim holds up, we say so, rather than burn your credibility disputing it.
Most of this industry moved its work offshore. We never did. Every analyst and every engagement lead is U.S.-based and in-house.
A permanent senior core runs every account, every call, and every filing, scaled only when the work demands it. You are never passed down the ladder.
Every dispute is evidence-checked before it goes out under your name. If it will not survive scrutiny, it does not get filed.
Nothing up front, ever. Our fee is only a share of what you actually collect, invoiced only after the money reaches you, and you keep the vast majority of every recovery. No retainer, no minimum, no software license. If we recover nothing, you owe nothing: zero risk, and zero cost of capital.
For over forty years, our team has worked inside major American retailers, building and filing the recovery audit claims their vendors receive. We know how the claims are assembled, what evidence the auditor pulled, what they skipped, and exactly where a claim collapses under scrutiny.
It is like walking into a tax audit with a former IRS auditor at your side. Software platforms match documents. We take claims apart, because we spent forty years putting them together. And every team member is U.S.-based and in-house; nothing is handed off to juniors or offshore processors.
For the free teardown, just a sample: one post-audit claim packet or simply your latest remittance details showing chargebacks, plus an accounts payable contact. If the sample shows value, we engage and you send us everything. For the engagement itself we work the last two years of deductions, since most major retailers support disputes that old, and we go through all of it systematically; that backlog is usually where the fastest money is. From there, we do all the hard work inside your retailer dispute portals as your designated representative. Most clients spend a few hours per quarter on us, mostly approving things.
No. Disputes run through the retailer's own established channels, which exist precisely because retailers expect professional suppliers to reconcile; the major department stores and the mass retailers all maintain them. We keep every filing factual and vendor-friendly, and where a claim is valid we concede it. Suppliers who reconcile carefully are treated as professionals, not problems.
The major department stores first, the household names, along with Walmart and Sam's Club, Target, Kroger, Costco, Amazon 1P, and most national chains and major distributors. If your deduction problem lives somewhere more unusual, ask; the anatomy of a claim does not change much across retailers.
It varies by retailer and claim type. At the major department stores, post-audit claims and disputes routinely reach back two years, and most dispute windows are use-it-or-lose-it. Every new engagement starts with backlog mining, because the fastest dollars are usually the ones already sitting in your history.
Many of the largest US department stores, the household names, building and filing the recovery claims their vendors receive: pricing, allowance, freight, and post-audit. We keep client names confidential in both directions, which is the same discretion your deduction data gets.
Recovery comes with prevention built in: after each cycle you receive a read-out of the root causes driving your deductions, so the same dollars stop leaking. Beyond that, we support clients case by case on routing and compliance setup, EDI and documentation gaps, and allowance and margin negotiations. If it touches the retail P&L, we have probably seen it.
Start with a sample. Within five business days you will receive a line by line evaluation of what looks disputable and where we would start. No upfront charge to you and no obligation, and an honest assessment if nothing looks disputable. If the sample shows value, we engage, you send us everything, and we systematically recover everything possible from it. All we need to get started is:
Prefer email? info@supplieradvocates.com
or call 713.701.9217.