Contingency recovery · CPG suppliers · Nationwide
We turn chargebacks and deductions into recovered revenue, stronger customer relationships, and lasting process improvement.
Find your retailer
Where are you getting deducted?
Walmart
OTIF fines, shortages, SQEP, pricing and post-audit claims.
Target
AP deduction codes, vendor income, freight and compliance.
Kroger
MCBs, scan-downs, ORAD compliance, shortages, post-audit.
Amazon 1P
Vendor Central chargebacks, shortage claims, co-op disputes.
Costco & club
Debit memos, compliance deductions, documentation claims.
More retailers
CVS, Walgreens, Albertsons, Publix, KeHE, UNFI and more.
What we do
Recover the money. Keep the retailer. Stop the deduction from coming back.
01
Recover the dollars
We validate every deduction, build the evidence packet, file disputes in the right retailer channel, and pursue recoverable dollars through resolution.
02
Protect the relationship
We dispute with documentation, not noise — so finance recovers money without turning every claim into a sales-account fight.
03
Fix the root cause
We trace deductions back to item setup, routing, ASN, pricing and allowance failures so the same losses stop repeating.
Send us your deduction file.
Find out what is recoverable — before you commit to anything.
Upstream CS is not a software platform. Senior operators work your file by hand — validating every code, building the evidence packet, filing disputes in the right retailer channel, and reporting back in plain English. You pay from what we recover. Nothing upfront, nothing if we do not recover.
The signature idea
Most recovery firms work the end of the lifecycle. The money is made at the start of it.
A deduction is created weeks before it hits the remittance — in a cost file that never synced, a PO routed a day late, an ASN with a missing expiry date. Recovering the dollar is worth doing. Removing the cause is worth more.
Why suppliers use us
Three differences that show up in the P&L
01
You get paid first
Contingency only. No license, no retainer, no minimum. If we recover nothing, you owe nothing.
02
Root cause, not just recovery
We close the process failure generating the deduction, so it stops coming back next quarter.
03
Senior operators, not a claims mill
Your file is worked by people who have sat on both sides of a deduction — not routed to a volume queue.
Services
Five ways we work a deduction file
Deduction & chargeback recovery
Historic and ongoing claims worked to resolution.
Root-cause remediation
The upstream process fix that stops recurring deductions.
Deduction audit
A 30-day read of your file: what is recoverable and what is about to expire.
Deduction code review
Every code decoded against the retailer's own documentation.
Team training & playbooks
Your AR and sales-ops teams trained on portals, evidence and windows.
Retailers & deduction types
The retailers, distributors and categories we cover.
Proof, honestly framed
What a 30-day deduction audit typically uncovers
We are a 2023-founded firm and do not publish other people's numbers as if they were ours. Here is the methodology instead: the four buckets every deduction file sorts into.
Resources
Guides for CPG finance teams
Walmart
Walmart OTIF fines: what they cost and how to dispute them
The 3% charge, the published thresholds, and the evidence that reverses a fine.
Target
Target vendor deductions: the codes CPG suppliers actually see
A030 through A176, the vendor income family, and how the Synergy dispute case works.
Definitions
Deduction vs. chargeback vs. dispute management
Three terms used interchangeably, and why the distinction changes what you do next.
Questions
The questions finance teams ask us first
How does contingency pricing actually work?
We are paid a percentage of what we recover, and only after the recovery lands. There is no license fee, no retainer, no onboarding charge and no minimum. If a claim is not recovered, there is nothing to invoice against it. The fee percentage is agreed in writing before any work starts, and it is the only way we get paid — which is why we will tell you when a deduction is genuinely owed instead of billing you to chase it.
What data do you need from us to start?
Typically read-only access to your retailer supplier portals, your remittance and deduction detail for the period under review, open invoice and credit data from your ERP, and your vendor agreements and promotional terms. For freight-related claims we will also want BOLs, PODs and carrier appointment records — usually from your 3PL. Most suppliers can assemble this in a few hours. We work from what you already have; you do not build anything new for us.
How long does recovery take?
It depends on the retailer, not on us. Some portals resolve documented disputes in weeks; others sit in research queues for a month or more, and post-audit claims can run longer. What we control is filing complete, evidenced claims early in the window rather than late — because a dispute filed after the window closes recovers nothing regardless of how strong the evidence is.
Do we have to switch software or implement a platform?
No. We are not a software company and we do not sell a platform. There is nothing to implement, integrate or train your team on. You keep your ERP, your EDI provider and your existing tooling exactly as they are. If you already run a deduction platform, we work inside it.
What happens if you recover nothing?
Then you owe nothing. That is the whole point of the model — the risk of a thin or unrecoverable deduction file sits with us, not with you. It also means we are candid at the audit stage: if we do not see enough recoverable value to justify the engagement, we will say so rather than take the work.
Is our retailer and vendor data secure?
We work under a written confidentiality agreement, access is limited to the people staffed on your account, and portal credentials stay under your control — we prefer named read-only users you can revoke at any time rather than shared logins. We are happy to work within your security review, your NDA template and your access-provisioning process.
Does this cover consumer transaction disputes?
No. We work exclusively on retail trade deductions between suppliers and retailers: the money a retailer or distributor subtracts from a supplier invoice for shortages, compliance failures, pricing claims, allowances, post-audit findings and OTIF-type fines. Consumer-facing transaction disputes are an unrelated field and outside our scope entirely.
Deduction audit
See what you're owed.
The deduction audit reviews your recent retailer remittance and deduction data, identifies what is recoverable, and shows you the root causes behind the repeat offenders. Recovery work runs on contingency — you get paid first, and our fee comes out of recovered dollars.