All companies strive to optimize cash flow and vendor relations.  Recovery audits can challenge both.  Traditional recovery audits present other issues as well. Recoveries from a prior year mean grocers lose the use of that cash for 12-18 months.  And as it is becoming more common for vendors to place limits on the age of claims they will accept, more and more recoveries are lost completely.  For example, Nestle is now telling many grocery clients they won’t accept claims more than six months from the transaction.

But What If I Told You…

There is now a solution that offers near real-time error detection and correction close to the transaction.  RecoverNOW™ is already successfully adopted by leading grocery chains to perform…wait for it…MONTHLY audits.

I know, it sounds too good to be true.  But here is what is happening:

• Near real-time audits  increase recovery  because errors are detected and presented as adjustments to individual invoices close to the transaction while still fresh in everyone’s minds.
• With RecoverNOW™, claims feel, like, taste like, and smell like normal invoice adjustments to vendors because they happen so close to the transaction.  If fact, it feels like recovery audit has been discontinued.
• Old claims no longer get in the merchants’ way of today’s vendor negotiations.
• Cash flow is accelerated, and…
• There is a one-time windfall in the first year of adopting RecoverNOW™ as the recoveries from the prior year and the current year happening concurrently.

What if Our Clients Told You…

ATG’s RecoverNOW™ can expedite cash recovery and improve vendor relations by eliminating old claims that impact current negotiations.  Who says so?

• Hy-Vee, Inc
  • “We are getting all the money we deserve and getting it faster.  In the past when we found a problem from one or two years back, the ‘recovered funds’ were often taken from this year’s promotional funding.  Because we are addressing issues within the same fiscal year, we are able to maximize the best possible deals for our customers.”
  • “Traditional post-annual audits were a disaster for vendor relations. Implementing a near real-time audit process is helping us eliminate the negative aspects of recovery audits by bringing the audit closer to the transaction.”
• Weis Markets
  • “Recovery audits always seemed to create tension between the buyers, the audit firm and the vendors. The near real-time audits have actually improved support from our buyers, as well as our vendor relationships.”
  • “Being an early adopter…has been a profitable move to both our vendor relationships and our bottom line.  I don’t know why any company wouldn’t do what we are doing.”

• Tops Friendly Markets
  • “In the spirit of vendor partnership, near real-time recovery is much better.  The situation is fresher in our minds and the turn-around time is faster for our cash.  Ultimately, this change improves our buyers’ margins and funding.”
  • “Our external auditors, as well as our partners in the vendor community, are favorably impressed with the improved cost recovery practices RecoverNow™ is providing Tops.  Dealing with promotional contracts from one or two years ago is a thing of the past.”

But wait, there’s more. (Did we really say that?)

ATG’s RecoverNOW™ provides more benefit to its retailer users with real-time analytics.,

ATG repurposes data prepared for audit purposes to business intelligence and analytics to provide specific fact-based vendor negotiations needed to improve margins, terms, and funding.  Merchandisers benefit from easy-to-access, on-demand vendor scorecards, fact sheets, and system-generated vendor “asks” at the category, sub-category, and item levels.

RecoverNOW™

Replacing legacy recovery audits with near real-time error detection and correction means getting your cash NOW.  Accelerating recovery from 18 months to just 90 days from the transaction means improved vendor relations and margins NOW.

To learn more about NOW, contact ATG Vice President Paul Dinkins at pdinkins@atgaudits.com or (224) 206-5807.