85% of organizations are leaving money on their Suppliers table. For some organizations, this can amount to millions of dollars each and every year! What makes matters worse is that most organizations don’t even realize it. Why?
Supplier returns/credits are not tracked in any account on the financial books, so there’s no visibility for what’s in process or what should be received. In addition, ERPs that do provide some type of return to vendor/supplier functionality fall short of providing a full solution. The end result is that organizations are, unfortunately, set up for supplier return/credit failure and financial leakage.
If an organization conducts periodic accounts payables audits, then they know that deductions not taken (aka supplier credits) are almost always the #1 item on the list, according to Gartner. The reality is that audits are reactive, and organizations possibly have to wait a year to receive what they are owed. Also, audit collection rates are expensive, upwards of 35%.
Audits are a great tool to identify problems, but they do not resolve the underlying issue. Think about them like the lights on your vehicle dashboard: they light up and indicate there’s a problem, but they don’t fix anything.
The most financially beneficial way (offering the highest cost saving) is to proactively address the root cause of supplier return financial leakage. How do you do that? The solution requires 4 things: 1) People, 2) Processes, 3) Technology, and 4) Governance.
Governance is the secret sauce and a key success factor. Successful governance requires that (a) you have control points throughout the entire supplier return/credit lifecycle (which is more difficult than it sounds), and (b) you have dedicated individuals responsible and accountable for ensuring every return entered is fullly processed throughout the lifecycle, which takes an average of 15+ steps and 6+ stakeholders. Most organizations don’t understand that this is a multi-faceted process with many stakeholders, and that those stakeholders are not communicating with each other. Therefore, one doesn’t know what the other is doing – or what to expect. This is a critical mistake.
For example, Payables doesn’t know how many credits are in process or what they should be expecting. Purchasing doesn’t know if the credit was ever applied, and the department returning the product doesn’t know if the credit will be applied back to their department.
Common Problems Within Supplier Returns Processes
On average, 85% of organizations are throwing money away due to Supplier Return financial leakage. Some of the common issues include:
- No central group that oversees and manages the returns process from start to finish
- No standard processes and rogue returns
- Departments lack confidence that returns will be processed or credited back to their department, so they let it expire, discard, or donate it
- No visibility for supplier return/credits financial information
- Credits are not getting to Payables with the correct information – or ever
Belmero’s Supplier Returns Managed Service Benefits
Belmero’s Supplier Returns Managed Service manages the entire Supplier Returns process, from start to finish – including keeping track of reason codes and using AI assisted governance to ensure that every credit makes it to Payables and improves the bottom line (or is quickly available in the budget).

It typically takes 15+ steps to successfully process supplier return credits. With the Belmero Managed Service, you’re only responsible for two: 1) contact us when you need to return product, and 2) ship the product back or stage it for pickup. That’s it! We have all of the people, processes, technology, and governance to take care of everything else. It’s that simple!
Belmero’s Results
Customers choose Belmero for our strong reputation of providing outstanding service, making the entire process simple, and of course, we’re known for delivering results! For example, 90% of returns obtain supplier approval within just 3 days… Not months or weeks, but 3 days!
Don’t take our word for it, hear it from your peers!
Sandy, Director of Purchasing & Payables, said, “…We have doubled the amount of processed return credits (nearly one million a year).”
Jim, Director of Supply Chain Purchasing, said, “We’re expecting to see our credits increase by 63%, which is about $2 million a year.”
Belmero has helped organizations stop this financial leakage and improve their bottom line – and we can do the same for your organization.
For more information please click here or contact us at [email protected].
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