How a $140M drinks brand got $2.6M back from distributor billbacks and retailer deductions

The problem

Marlow Beverage sells teas and sparkling waters through 58 distributors and six grocery chains. Nine sales managers agree promotions by email, and there is no trade promotion system. Distributors bill back $11.2M of allowances a year on their own arithmetic, and retailers deduct $3.9M from remittances.

Checking one billback meant finding four documents in three places, about 45 minutes. One accountant could review the 80 lines a month above $10K. The other 1,600 went to sales, who confirmed them from memory, and the credit was issued.

What Seeft found

Seeft tied every billback to its program letter, the distributor's depletion report and the state price file, and every deduction to its shipment documents.

• 14 percent of billback lines matched no approved program ($1.6M), 6 percent claimed a tier the depletion report never reached ($690K), and 2 percent were billed twice ($220K).
• $1.1M of retailer deductions were contradicted by the signed proof of delivery, the appointment record or a promotion already settled by billback.
• The co-packers billed yield loss above the tolling allowance all year, $340K.

What Seeft got back

Seeft now holds each billback until it has been checked, and answers the ones that fail with the program letter and depletion line attached. Within 12 months, $1.6M of billbacks was dropped or reissued, $640K of deductions was reversed inside the retailers' windows, and $290K came back from the co-packers.

Once distributors knew every line was checked, the disputable share of billbacks fell from 22 percent to 7 percent, about $1.7M a year saved before any dispute is filed.