Process
How Upstream's deduction recovery process works
Six stages from first conversation to a closed root cause. No implementation project, no software rollout, and no invoice until dollars land.
The process
Six stages
Stages one to three are free. You see the size and shape of the opportunity before you commit to anything.
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Discovery call
Which retailers, roughly what deduction volume, who owns disputes today, and what has already been tried. Thirty minutes is usually enough to know whether there is an engagement here. If there is not, we say so.
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Data pull
We tell you exactly which reports to export and which read-only portal users to provision. Remittance and deduction detail, open AR, vendor agreements, promotional terms, and transport documents where freight claims are in scope. Most teams assemble this in a few hours.
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Audit
Roughly 30 days. Every deduction decoded to its true reason, validity scored, dollars sorted into genuinely owed, recoverable now, recoverable with more documentation, and expired. You receive a written findings review with the causes behind the largest categories, and you keep it whether or not the engagement continues.
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Dispute filing
Evidence packets built claim by claim and filed in the correct channel, prioritised by dollars at risk and days remaining in the window. Everything is logged: claim number, code, amount, channel, filing date, status.
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Recovery & escalation
Status tracked, information requests answered inside the retailer's response deadlines, denials analysed and re-disputed where a further round is permitted. Recovered dollars are credited to you; our contingency fee is invoiced afterwards.
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Root-cause fix
Claims are coded to causes, causes are ranked by cost, and each one gets a specific remediation with a named owner on your side. This is the stage that changes next quarter's remittance rather than last quarter's.
Where this sits on the lifecycle
Recovery is the middle of the job, not the end of it
Questions
Process questions, answered plainly
How does contingency pricing work on a live engagement?
An agreed percentage of dollars actually recovered, invoiced after the recovery is credited or paid — never in advance, never against claims still in process. The percentage is fixed in the engagement letter before any work begins. There is no licence, retainer, onboarding or minimum. Read our even-handed comparison of flat fee, contingency and percentage-of-recovery pricing.
What exactly do you need from us in week one?
Read-only portal access for the retailers in scope, remittance and deduction detail for the review period, open AR and credit data from your ERP, vendor agreements and promotional terms, and a named contact each in finance and supply chain. Freight-heavy files also need BOLs, PODs and appointment records, usually from your 3PL.
How long before we see money?
Filing typically starts within the first few weeks, once validity and evidence are established. Resolution timing then belongs to the retailer: some documented disputes clear in weeks, research queues can take a month or more, and post-audit matters run longer. We report weekly on what has been filed, what has resolved and what is aging.
Do we need to change software or implement a platform?
No. We are a service firm, not a software vendor. Nothing to install, integrate, licence or learn. You keep your ERP and EDI stack as it is, and if you already run a deduction platform we work inside it rather than beside it.
What if you recover nothing?
You owe nothing. The engagement risk sits with us. It also means the free audit is a genuine qualification step — if we do not find enough recoverable value, we will tell you and decline the work.
Is our data secure, and who sees it?
Work is performed under a written confidentiality agreement by the named people staffed on your account. We prefer individual read-only portal users you provision and can revoke, rather than shared credentials. We are glad to complete your vendor security review and sign your NDA rather than insisting on ours.
What happens when the engagement ends?
You keep everything: the code reference, the root-cause findings, the evidence packets and the playbooks. Recovery work that outlives the engagement is documented and handed over. We would rather a client's deduction volume shrink to the point where they no longer need us than keep re-winning the same claims.
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.