posted by Stacy Jackson
Today's post is an overview of the concept of The Seven Critical Steps in Best-Practice trade promotion management. These steps have been identified and document by Answers Systems based on over 20-years of contract management and claim settlement experience in the foodservice industry.
Standardization . . . identify the rules of engagement between you and your trading partners defining all the business rules of your trade promotion programs. At this stage, you should also standardize all of your back-office policies for managing contracts/promotions and their corresponding transactions (payments, deductions, recalculations). Answers Systems helps clients in their efforts to standardize their trade promotion management during integration of the ContractPro® contract and rebate management module and our claim settlement solution.
Contract Management . . . develop "one version of the truth." You can do this by using a system like Answers Systems' ContractPro solution for contract creation, approval, and tracking. Having all of your contracts created based on a standard template with approved contractual language will help ensure that the contract you approve is the same one the distributor and operator receive and act on.
Data Acquisition . . . create ways to receive and react to electronic claims as well as paper. Many organizations can receive electronic data but few have real-world solutions for handling and acting on that data. Answers Systems takes electronic feeds from distributors and operators and turns them into actionable claims and robust reporting.
Verification . . . to truly understand the profitability of your contracts/promotions, you need the ability to verify every line of every claim you receive. Answers Systems has been performing this service for clients for over 20 years. We have the ability to help you prevent over payments as well as catch "double dipping" situations.
Reconciliation . . . amend claims/contracts to correct submission issues and errors; this also prevents the same errors from recurring with each new submission against the contract.
Settlement . . . use a system that allows for settlement by check and/or approved deduction . Additionally, your settlement solution should support efforts to rebill and collect against invalid deductions.
Reporting & Analysis . . . finally, your solution should allow for timely and accurate reports that help you analyze purchase trends, contract profitability, SKU profitability, etc.
Need support with any of these critical areas? Contact us today.