The Retail Supplier Financial Fitness Plan

Keywords

#FinancialFitness #RetailSuppliers #WalmartSuppliers  #Deductions #cashflow, #compliance #Retail #HRG-audit #businessgrowth #PartnerwithPros #Profits 

Summary

In this episode of the Savvy Supplier, Boyd Evert, Jon Allen and Al Frank discuss the importance of having a financial fitness plan for suppliers, especially at the start of the new year. They explore various strategies to cut unnecessary deductions, build compliance endurance, manage cash flow, and the benefits of partnering with professionals to enhance business growth. Jon Allen from Woodridge Retail Group shares insights on how suppliers can recover lost revenue and improve their financial health, along with a special 50% discount offer from HRG to handle your Shortages!

Takeaways

• Having a financial fitness plan is essential for suppliers.
• Cutting dead weight from deductions can significantly improve profits.
• Many compliance violations are disputable and can be managed effectively.
• Cash flow management is critical for business sustainability.
• Partnering with professionals can free up time and resources for suppliers.
• Understanding the nuances of different retailers is key to successful dispute resolution.
• Suppliers often face challenges with debit balances due to deductions.
• A proactive approach to compliance can lead to fewer deductions.
• The right partnerships can unlock significant cash flow for suppliers.
• Special offers can provide substantial savings and improve financial health.

Titles

• Maximizing Profits: The Financial Fitness Plan for Suppliers
• Cutting Dead Weight: A Key to Financial Success

Sound Bites

• "Cutting the dead weight is crucial."
• "This offer is a game changer."
• "Wiser decisions, fewer deductions."

Chapters

00:00

Introduction to Financial Fitness Plans

02:45

Cutting the Dead Weight: Deductions Explained

05:47

Building Endurance: Mastering Compliance

08:27

Strengthening Your Core: Cash Flow Management

11:30

Partnering with Professionals for Success

Welcome to “The Savvy Supplier,” your go-to podcast for navigating the ever-changing landscape of retail supply! Join us as we dive into expert insights and actionable tips to help retail suppliers save time and money. From tackling inflation to optimizing operations, we’ve got you covered. Tune in every week for strategies that empower you to thrive in a competitive market. Don't miss out—subscribe now and become a savvy supplier! 💡

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Need help with managing Deductions and implementing Supplier Best Practices?  Help is here!
Email:  Boyd.Evert@HRG-audit.com

#RetailSupplierDeductions
#RetailSupplier
#Post-AuditClaims
#HRG

"Wiser Decisions, Fewer Deductions"

Transcript

Transcript

You might have a physical fitness plan for the new year, but do you have a financial fitness plan? No worries. We've got you covered on this episode of the Savvy Supplier. Welcome into the Savvy Supplier, where we save you time and money. I'm Al Frank. As always, HRG co-founder and CEO Boyd Evert is here. Happy New Year to you, Boyd. Happy New Year.

Just a heads up later in this podcast, Boyd will be sharing a 50 % off offer with you. You heard that right. 50 % off. So you'll want to stay tuned for that. But first, my pleasure and honor to introduce to you a special guest today, Jon Allen. Jon is CEO at Woodridge Retail Group. Jon, good to have you with us. Thank you, Al. Happy to be here with you today. Jon, you've written a very timely blog. You call it

New year, new profits, the financial fitness plan every supplier needs. That's a great title, by the way. Why did you decide to design this plan for retail suppliers? Well, Al, it's it's that time of year, right? Retail deductions become such a burden on our supplier community. They're really the new deadweight on profits. And so often these deductions go unchallenged.

And this is because suppliers just don't have the time, tools or expertise to find them. Boyd, this first step in the financial fitness plan, cutting the dead weight. When you hear that, what do you think? where to begin, right? There's so many different areas. we'll go to the two major buckets, the unauthorized and unintentional. So the unintentional deductions, those would be the ones where we didn't intend to ship short or

intend to have our shipment received short and maybe received in error. So those are the unintentional deductions and they're quite large. And then you have the unauthorized deductions. That's where you'll have maybe an auditor work, a third party auditor at the retailer that are claiming that they lost profit due to a product launch or some such thing where they're just saying that you owe us this money and you've never aligned to paying it. So

(02:26)

Those are the two major buckets. One, oops, we made a mistake, whether it's the retailer or the supplier. The other one is whether they're not aligned and they're just taking, they're just taking money. And you've seen really great results, significant results when you fought those invalid deductions for your clients. Yeah, absolutely. And we've got a team of experts that average on average over 20 years of experience in retail accounting. So

They're able to speak to issues that are often extremely complex that where people would write two or three paragraphs. Our team, one or two sentences. We write email in disputing that get read and that can get escalated and upper management can even understand, you know, a very complex issue when you simplify it. Well, Jon, step two in your financial fitness plan is build your endurance. How can a retail supplier

build their endurance. Al, the best way to build endurance, I relate it to mastering your compliance. From routing guide violations to labeling errors, the rules are just endless. It's like running an obstacle course. Eventually you're going to get tripped up. But here's the kicker. Many of these compliance violations, lead deductions are disputable. So to build endurance, imagine

instead of trying to do it yourself, having a personal trainer, spotting these errors and coaching you to improve your processes and your outcomes. The results are going to be fewer deductions and a much healthier business. Boy, that's a, it's a tough thing for suppliers to master compliance with the rules of the game. Keep changing all the time. How does HRG keep suppliers up to speed on all those rule changes? All right. Excellent question. So

There's a myriad of ways in which a retailer can announce new guidelines, new procedures. They can obviously do it in the vendor agreement or supplier agreement. Often they'll just do it internally inside their portal. They'll have posted announcement where we're changing the way we're doing this. Some cases it's sort of a silent announcement that they just roll it out and you see it on the deduction saying, we're holding you accountable.

(04:47)

for let's say a short shipment during a promotion. So we're going to charge you promotional discount on the shortage part of it. I mean, that's just one example. there's several different ways in which retailers can roll out new deductions, new guidelines, new compliance criteria. So what we do is we take that information that we're getting from one supplier and make sure that the other suppliers are alerted.

When one of our clients hears of a new policy or procedure, we make sure that that information is propagated across the entire supplier population. And for the information that's not sensitive to any particular supplier, we'll announce that here on the Savvy Supplier.

Jon, what's the step three in your financial fitness plan? It's really about strengthening your core, Al. And cashflow is the core of any business. And deductions, they're the sneaky bad habits that drain the energy out of the company. So retailers are deducting billions of dollars annually from these suppliers. And many of these deductions are legitimate, but others, pricing discrepancy, short shipments.

promotion allowance, freight claims, they may not hold water. So recovering invalid deductions is like hitting the financial gem. It takes effort, but the results are game changing for these suppliers. Boyd, what are your thoughts about what Jon just said? Yeah, absolutely. you want to have that discipline around your team for each customer that you're serving. And the best way to do that is to have somebody that knows that retailer

very, very intimately and understands the nuances because what will work in disputing a deduction for one retailer won't necessarily work for another and they all have their own dialect of retailing. So really it's helpful to have an advocate, somebody that has that knowledge, that domain knowledge that can help you. And then getting back to what John said about cashflow.

(07:03)

seasonal suppliers are hit the hardest in that because a lot of times you'll get into debit balance where you owe your customer money. And so we have some seasonal suppliers where they're having to ship in product and wait for that, the value of that product to exceed the debit balance, what they owe the retailer before they can even be paid on those initial shipments was extremely painful. And that's where

Again, we can help out because we can minimize those deductions and help increase that cash flow much more quickly than you can on your own. Jon, the step four in your financial plan is to partner with a pro. It seems to me like that is a missing element for a lot who are out there in the more of a DIY approach. Do it yourself, but they could partner with a pro and take care of a lot of things that are ailing them at the moment, right?

Absolutely. The advantage of partnering with a pro is it allows you the time, energy, and results of just focusing on your core business, focusing on what you do best, and leaving the rest up to the experts so you can really grow your business, maximize your profits. Void Y is right now the perfect time to partner with the pros at HRG.

Well, first of all, I think it's top of mind with the calendar year close and fiscal year close usually aligns with that or usually the end of January. So deductions are top of mind. And then also too is, is you want to start the new year on a good footing, right? You, you want to get into some better habits and how you go to market, how do you, how you manage your business so that you minimize the risk. And that's

what we're able to do through our service, we think that it will pay it for itself multiple times over and give you a clear insight into your business and how to grow it safely and securely so that you're not having a lot of risk for year-end deductions. And you want to share a special offer today, don't you? Absolutely, yes. So we're offering 50 % off on our service for shortage deductions. And so

(09:25)

If you don't have a service, then you're going to get 50 % off on our excellent service. But if you've got some other third party provider that you're using and you want to explore to see what our expertise can do to help improve your business, we're willing to offer 50 % off of what you're currently paying. So either way, you're going to save a lot of money. And to me, I think it's just one of the easiest decisions you can make this year. Jon, what do you think about that offer? Sounds like a game changer.

That is a game changer, Al. You know, it's an offer that makes it easy for suppliers to recover the lost revenue at minimal risk and absolute maximum upside. know, our suppliers are recovering significant money. They're unlocking cash flow. They're improving their margins and they're really positioning their business for growth this year. All at a fraction of the cost. Well, good news all the way around for Walmart suppliers today.

If you want to stretch your budget and boost your bottom line, you can do both with this amazing half price offer from HRG. And this offer is for a limited time only, but you can reach out right now to HRG to take the next step. Let me share a couple of easy ways for you to do that. You can go to the HRG website at HRG-Audit.com. That's HRG-Audit.com. Or you can call HRG at 479-616-1600 or you can email us at info at HRG dash audit.com. All the contact info is also in the show notes for you today. We would be delighted if you would contact us so we can help you with your financial fitness plan. Jon, thanks again for joining us today. We appreciate your insights. Thank you so much. Our wish for you is this: wiser decisions, fewer deductions. See you next time on the Savvy Supplier.

(11:35)

Are you a Walmart supplier? HRG will handle your shortages for half price. You heard it right. You get a whopping 50 % discount. If you already have a third party, we'll do it for half of what you pay them now. Our team of experts will handle all your shortages for the next 12 months. And we're confident you'll stay with us when you see how much time and money we save you. This is a limited time offer, so don't miss out. Contact us now to take the next step and stretch your budget in 2025. Pay less.

Get more HRG. Wiser decisions. Fewer deductions.