ContractPro

Overriding Pendings Versus Contract Management in Rebate Settlement

Answers Systems — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:44:39 GMT

When performing rebate settlement for our foodservice manufacturer clients, we often get the following question regarding pendings:

Why can’t we just override the pending and pay it?

Short answer: we can, but we don't recommend doing this.

When you override a pending, all you are doing is fixing that one claim instead of addressing the root cause of the claim in error. Why not take a few extra minutes in your contract management process and either update the contract in the ContractPro solution, or ensure that your customer has the correct contract terms on file in their system?

If you update the contract (or work with your customer to get the correct terms in their system) not only are you fixing that one pending claim--you are also fixing all future claims against that contract. This means future claims will not pend for that same reason, causing less pendings and more rebate settlement via check rather than deductions.

Typically a pending often means a guaranteed deduction. As stated in previous blogs, deductions adds a lot of extra work to both Answers Systems and our clients: pendings are no different. So what solution do you think is best: take a few extra minutes to fix your pending through some best-practice contract management steps up front, or take a lot of extra time on deductions and pendings for all future claims to come?

Technorati tags: data acquisition, rebate settlement, contract management, pendings

ContractPro Trade Promotion Management Solution Goes Live with FSEnet+ on September 13

Answers Systems — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:26:42 GMT

Answers Systems is excited to announce that our go-live date with the FSEnet⁺ solution is September 13. We are believers in and advocates for electronic contract collaboration between foodservice industry trading partners, and we are pleased to be the first and only foodservice trade promotion management solution for Manufaturers to offer an electronic interface with FSEnet⁺.

Answers Systems' integration of the ContractPro solution with FSEnet⁺ will mean:

reduced risk of human error due to elimination of dual entry (manual contract creation in both systems won't be required),
greater visibility into the status of a contract,
and even more accurate claim settlement thanks to transmission from FSEnet⁺ back to Answers Systems.

Check out our Answers Systems-FSEnet⁺press release online for more details.

If you are not currently a ContractPro customer and would like an online demonstration showing you the trade promotion management benefits of our solution, please contact us at 800-225-6127.

Find the One Who Says "NO!"

Answers Systems — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:08:39 GMT

by Bud Hilton

I wish I had coined this phrase but I can’t take credit. My son, who has spent 16 years or so with our company and is now our President, made this statement one day when I said to him, “I wish we could get through the maze and find out who, at this particular company, can approve our project.” He simply directed me to not look for the one who can say “yes” . . . find the one that is saying “NO” and impeding the search. The more I thought of this the more I knew he was right (darn, that was hard to admit).

It’s true, but hard to swallow, that in most corporate structures you can find a lot of people that will agree to the need of many products and services that are presented. Their jobs are to take their well-researched recommendation to their bosses for approval. You have probably been caught in this triangle of “pending forward movement” many times. Most times the one carrying your story to their boss does not even want to tell you WHY they were unsuccessful; so knowledge of the real decision to decline “rests in that limbo world.” Really brash salespeople try to uncover the real decision maker by leading with that always-dangerous question . . . “who will make final decision on this project?” Right off, you are telling your first line of contact that you do not believe they have much power.

The best line of attack to determining the final “NO Chief” is to develop a series of questions to arrive at who possibly could “own” certain areas that are impediments to your success. Once you have identified corporate hurdles, you can fashion certain questions to gather your information and thus narrow down your winding paths. So, let’s look at some obvious things that create NO answers:

WE CAN’T AFFORD THIS! - First glance says this is a “Finance Department” issue. Not always true. Budgets for expenses are many times owned by other department heads in Sales, Marketing, Procurement, etc., and can be “swapped” internally if logic becomes a prevalent issue. Many large companies “budget for spend” but may not budget for ROI-oriented value. In other words, if your project comes with a potential Return-On-Investment that is greater than its expense, you may have a fighting chance to sell its value. Presentation of “more money” is always a good thing to arm your buyer with. At least you might get closer to finding out who is wielding the NO axe.

ISLAND GUARDS – Some companies are loaded with Island Guards (IGs) whose main goal in life is to maintain their island and all the report-ees that live there. If benefits, of your product or service, are at the expense of replacing what has become comfortable to the IG, then your chances are slim and you MUST seek a higher level of potential “NO Gods.” You will have to develop your own tricks to circumvent the IGs and retain your head.

STATUS QUO – This is a tough one. Why are these folks seeking a better solution if an SQ situation exists? Yeah! You are peeling back the onion, now. In many cases this area may bridge over from the IG situations, mentioned above. Some companies place responsible people in buying positions that simply believe OR are led to believe that they are not doing “too bad” now with their current way of doing things. Wow, that “too bad” area is usually broad and cloudy. The killer question(s) to explore is something like . . . “what is your current incidence of experience in qualified numbers?” Of course you will not get the right answer but may get some folks to thinking. Try to ask these kind of questions when the “bosses” are around. Quality managers do not normally like answers such as “pretty good,” “not too bad,” etc.

IT IS HARD TO HEAR THE NO PERSON – You can’t hear them because they are generally shielded by the YES folks and it is your job to uncover them. So, rather than taking you on too much deeper of a dive, I think you get the idea. Stop looking for yes people and make your plans to find the one that is saying NO.

Bud Hilton
Chairman/CEO Genesis Group Inc., Answers Systems

Making Money in Hard times

Answers Systems — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 20:16:33 GMT

by John Nicholas

Not only do we have an economic downturn, but today's businesses must navigate a number of major issues from heightened competition to a demand for more customized product. Even in tough times, a successful company must deliver on the bottom-line. There is a tendency and a mindset with most every company that to increase revenue, you just need to move more product out the door. In a challenging economic environment, the pressure is especially on to increase sales.

The obvious problem is that when money is tight for individuals, it is hard to just sell more. Companies must look for additional ways to boost revenue. That means not putting up with some areas that there has been ongoing revenue lost (and every organization has those areas of loss that they have been turning a blind eye to). Especially in times like this, you must get some of the money back that you have been leaving on the table! This means simplifying, standardizing and continually improving processes in every area of the organization.

Automating manual processes boosts productivity and real-time access to more accurate information. This is a key component to businesses achieving new levels of efficiency and profitability. This includes improving cash flow by reducing order to cash cycle times. It means reducing costs by eliminating manual processes and establishing real-time visibility allowing you to better manage inventory. It especially means better managing the company’s network of business relationships. The management of this network of relationships is of course the essence of supply chain management.

Successful supply chain management requires focusing on improvements in performance that result from better management of key relationships. To do this you must improve visibility into your business. At Answers Systems we are dedicated to helping our foodservice manufacturer clients not only improve their processes but also unlock the full value of their data assets! We do this in several areas:

Sales/billback data collection (from almost 2000 distributors and operators. We acquire it, map it, and scrub it, providing a clean electronic feedback to our manufacturer clients.
Contract management ( our system captures terms of deals, has a robust approval process, and monitors compliance & performance)
Claim reconciliation and claim settlement (verifies and reconciles, and settles terms of agreement against the claim) Our push button rebill process, (for ineligible deductions), is successfully collecting up to 80% of everything rebilled.
Analytics and reporting (performance, compliance, who is buying and who is not, detailed profitability, etc)

There is a whole lot of money left on the table by most foodservice manufacturers. Our job at Answers Systems is in helping them get many of those dollars back, and it is working! We are seeing significant ROI for our manufacturer clients through improving and automating processes and in increasing visibility to vital parts of our clients business.

Contract Management Software, a bicycle for your trade promotion management

Answers Systems — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:01:38 GMT

by Greg Hilton

“A computer, is like a bicycle for the mind,” Steve Jobs, Founder/CEO Apple.

I always liked that quote. Humans have a difficult time keeping up with the other creatures that inhabit this earth. Thanks to opposable thumbs, our early ancestors could grasp a wooden club and “evolve” to create more advanced technology through the ages. What sets us apart from every other known species is our ability to build tools. These mechanical extensions make difficult jobs easier and make the complex easier.

One of the greatest compliments that we receive at Answers Systems is, “your contract management software is really easy to use.” It is truly a daily struggle to make incredibly complex processes easy to understand through our products and services. It cannot be clearer: foodservice customers are looking for easy-to-use solutions that get them the information they need to manage their business. Oh, and make sure it is easy for the customer to get started.

We are super excited about some upcoming ContractPro® trade promotion management software releases that target ease of use and ease of adoption. In the next few releases, we are driving improved claim pending reconciliation, report deployment, improved auto-population of volume (based on past performance) and a ton more evolutionary, yet easy to use, improvements.

At Answers Systems, we believe in the technology and service trifecta:

Deliver critical information
Make the products easy to use
Help our customers adopt solutions quickly and easily

If you are a manufacturer in the foodservice industry and are currently asking questions like the ones below . . .

“Am I getting all of my claims from distributors and operators?”
“Do I really know whether or not my Aramark contract is in compliance?”
“Am I paying earned income to distributors where I am actually driving the volume through my contract management decisions?”
“Is one distributor performing better (i.e., supporting my growth into street penetration) better than another?”

. . . we can help.

In the coming weeks, look for news from our product development team about these incredible new features targeting improved contract compliance, improved trade promotion measurement and generally, really cool, easy-to-use features.

Want to embrace the issue, consider the solution and really improve your organization’s trade promotion management? Contact us. Answers Systems' ContractPro and ValuTrak® solutions are software and services designed for the unique and specific needs of the foodservice industry.

How to Address GPOs and Double Dipping

Answers Systems — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:55:16 GMT

by Brian Maloney

It’s almost impossible for manufacturers and distributors to keep track of all the locations in the foodservice industry and which Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) each location may/may not belong to today…and that’s hoping each location belongs to just one GPO when it relates to foodservice purchasing.

The issue is so mind boggling at times that whenever the topic comes up, everyone just shakes their heads, agrees that it’s a big problem, and then they move on without even trying to figure out possible solutions.

Here’s a solution . . . .the Foodservice Industry needs One Source that maintains all the GPO’s and which locations link to each one. This One Source would be independent of any distributor, manufacturer, or operator. Anyone in the industry that needs to know location-level information by GPO could go to the One Source and that’s it.

Let’s use an example: Manufacturer A wants to set up a contract with Novation and Premier. The deviated pricing will go through Distributor B. The distributor is handed these new agreements and instead of trying to figure out what locations in their system they should link to these two pricing agreements, the distributor simply pulls this information from the independent One Source of information. The GPOs know they must continue to load their location lists into this One Source. That’s it.

If there are times when a single location is showing up on more than one GPO’s location list, that location is flagged and it won’t funnel into any distributors systems for pricing until the GPOs can agree who owns that location. The One Source company would be responsible for catching these and working with the GPO’s. The way this has to work is that a major distributor or set of distributors and/or manufacturers must agree to this concept and then mandate to the GPOs that they load their location lists into this independent One Source company.

It would work. So what distributors and/or manufacturers are ready to solve this?

Return of the Foodservice "SPENDUSTRY"

Answers Systems — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:36:25 GMT

by Bud Hilton

Is spending in our foodservice industry on its way back? What could postpone the return of restaurant spending, once the economic conditions begin to loosen up? Can the really smart marketers help to promote the return of spending in foodservice locations? The answers lie in understanding what we did to initially promote spending in a more prosperous economy.

In much better times, when marketers pushed to redirect consumer dollars from retail grocery stores to eating out, we were successful to a large degree at holding industry wallets hostage! We did an outstanding job of convincing the consumer public to dedicate a larger portion of their discretionary income to eating out. Through some carefully orchestrated advertising strategy we built a SPENDUSTRY based on the following ideas:

With at least a two-member family income you can afford to eat out more often
The quality of “restaurant” food is superior to most cook-at-home opportunities
You have worked hard . . . you deserve to eat out
Eating out is a primary entertainment avenue
There is little time left to do home-prep meals

With the economic crunch over the past few years, consumers may have been trying very hard to cut-back on away-from-home meal consumption and it has not been easy for many reasons. Cooking and at home meal prep became a lost art in the years prior to the eco-crash; for many, eating at home has become unacceptable punishment; time and clean up, after a long day, is still a big issue; and, oh yeah . . . I like the food and friends combination so I will cut back on other entertainment spending.

It has been is very hard to give up the luxury of eating out. A large percent of this SPENDUSTRY can’t wait to return to the rewards of eating out and all indications are that improvement in economic conditions may get them there faster. What we can do as foodservice marketers is to do exactly what we did to get people in our units in the first place . . . when time were good. The 6 reasons for eat-out, mentioned above, still exist. So, the smart marketers will probably return to the same campaigns, and apply the same sound reasoning, to entice consumers to return to their restaurant habits and reward themselves NOW!

The challenge is to get behind campaigns to create “reactivity” in foodservice dine out situations . . . our industry depends on it!

V. Bud Hilton
Chairman & CEO
Genesis Group Inc., Answers Systems

The Answers Systems' Vision

Answers Systems — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:33:54 GMT

by Greg Hilton

In the short time that I have had an opportunity to serve as President of Answers Systems, I have been reminded (from this new perspective) of the exciting destination that Answers Systems--and the customers we serve--are heading toward. In an industry with so many complications and challenges, it is important to reflect on the vision on which our our team is focused.

The Answers Systems' Vision . . . To provide critical information to the Foodservice Industry with easy-to-use, easy-to-adopt solutions.

Quite simply, we believe completely that to succeed in the Foodservice industry, our customers need to:

A. Get the essential information needed to manage and lead.
B. Get there using tools and solutions that are elegant and easy to use.
C. Get there as quickly and in as easy a manner as is possible.

At Answers Systems, we believe that everything we do is governed by these core philosophies. We believe that our destination and the successful destination of our clients and partners are contingent on each of us believing the same thing.

Want to embrace the issue, consider the solution and really improve your organization’s trade promotion management? Contact us. Answers Systems' ContractPro® and ValutTrak® solutions are software and outsourced services designed for the unique and specific needs of the foodservice industry.

DATA ACQUISITION FOR TRADE PROMOTION MANAGEMENT - ELECTRONIC BILLBACK CLAIM SUBMISSION “MADE EASY”

Answers Systems — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:27:39 GMT

by Janet Zlokovich

Getting Started with submitting Electronic Billback Reporting for deviated billbacks . . .

Many distributors are unsure of where to begin. When I talk to them about sending a data file for their deviated billbacks rather than emailing a static report format, distributors are sometimes hesitant because they want to make sure one solution and the same file layout will satisfy every manufacturer trading partner’s requirements.

The good news is there are easy-to-adopt industry standards for claim submission.

Specifications are already in place for the EDI 867 Product Transfer and Resale Report – Foodservice Billback document. This industry standard document was developed through the efforts of the GS1 US Foodservice committee. We are currently receiving claim data from distributors who have used these guidelines for their development.

My role in Data Acquisition at Answers Systems is to promote electronic data transmissions for billback reporting. When we receive a data extract file, I perform the mapping alignment to our EclaimSM table where the data can be staged and synchronized for standardization. We have a dedicated group of IT professionals that manage the data files and load process. Whenever possible, automation is applied to streamline and expedite. The end result is a paperless workflow that can drive waste out of the supply chain. I am always ready to share my experiences on how I have worked with other distributors to transition to the EDI 867 while having minimal impact on effort, time and resources. Distributors who have used this document as the spec have been able to apply their own translation based on the data available from their internal rebate applications and financial systems. They are able to substantiate and support the goal of 1 standard file layout for all their claim data. Another advantage is being able to automate the transmission to the manufacturer so they can receive prompt payment for their billback invoice and have a positive impact cash flow.

Even through it’s our preference to receive the EDI 867-Billback, we are flexible and can accept other file types such as Text (delimited-character), CSV and Excel. The file transmission can be transmitted via FTP or email. My recommendation is to use FTP to our secure site to allow automation and tracking receipt for the file delivery. If you are interested in receiving more information, contact Janet Zlokovich at janet.zlokovich@answerssystems.com or call 727-639-2151.

Technorati tags: data acquisition, data syncrhonization

Changes, Changes, Changes

Answers Systems — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:56:04 GMT

by Tracy McQuilkin

We are always looking for ways to do things better, more accurately, and more timely within the Settlement department. We are working on testing an enhancement for claim verification that will do all of these things. Our current process for e-claims works pretty well to resolve contracts/trade spending agreements. We are going to use this same process on paper claims.

Our current clients will soon receive more information about this enhancement explaining exactly what it is and how it will help us to process claims in an even more timely and accurate manner. While there is nothing better than e-claims received via FTP that are fed into our system, this will be the next best thing.