Posted by
Stacy Jackson
Through our years of experience in helping clients manage their
Data Acquisition & Data Management in
trade promotion management, we've identified the following potential pain points that foodservice manufacturers face:
- Slow (or NO) submission of claims
- Claim information scattered throughout the organization
- Lack of internal capability to receive electronic claims
- Data mapping of incoming claims
- Matching claims to contracts
- No internal system to properly distribute and use this information
For each of the above pain points, we have outlined the best practices to help you and your organization remove the obstacles and issues as identified above. Some of these best practices are:
Creation of a central repository with scanned claim capabilities: The best practice to prevent the "slow/no claim receipt" situation is to create a central claim repository. For brokers who wish to see the claim data, make sure you have a claim-scanning element built into your claim/contract management system. That way the broker can still see the original claim data while at the same time your payment processing department gets the claim paid within a timely manner.
Conversion of key distributors, operators, and group purchasing organizations (GPOs) to electronic billbacks instead of paper: be sure to create a flexible processing system that will allow you to accept various data file formats (Excel, EDI, etc.) so that you can load the data electronically instead of manually. Answers Systems currently receives over 70% of billbacks electronically for our manufacturer customers. Some people mistakenly think that electronic claim receipt means less hassles and headaches. Not necessarily true! Whether you get paper or electronic data, you can still have the same errors. Electronic claims simply facilitate the faster flow of information and prevent additional errors that your staff could make when re-keying information. As far as claims for incorrect SKUs or other errors originating with the claimant, you still get the same errors . . . you just receive them more quickly. But, the important thing is this: you now have more time to react to and correct claim errors before a deduction is taken.
Map everything: map every distributor SKU back to your own SKU, map operators to their GPOs, map operator units to headquarters, and map units of measure (UOM) conversions. Properly SKUs and operator locations claims help you prevent double dipping. Properly mapping UOM conversions help prevent over payments. For example, you may list your SKU 12345 as followings: 4-10 lb. containers, and your rebates are set up as "per pound." The distributor could sell your SKU 12345 by the pound, by the case, in eaches. It's key to ensure that you are paying those rebates correctly - map your SKU and rebates to the various UOMs that the distributor may be selling by. That could mean the difference between a correct payment and a massive over payment of rebate dollars.
Contract-to-claim matching: this means verifying the claim at a detailed level. With a good contract management system, you can match claims to contract by specific distributor/operator agreement, by product, by distributor agreement, timeframe. In fact, Answers Systems experience is that 80% of all electronic claims can be matched to the correct agreement. The remaining 20% of claims can't be matched because no contract exists.
Technorati tags:
foodservice trade promotion management,
contract and rebate management,
data acquisition,
data mapping,
data management