Finance vs Sales: Who’s Really Responsible for Deduction Recovery?

Let’s settle an office debate you’ve probably had: Whose job is it to handle retail deductions?

Finance says it’s sales. Sales says it’s finance. Meanwhile, the money quietly disappears.

The truth? Both sides have a role to play—but neither is set up to do it alone.

Here’s the real problem: deduction recovery lives in a weird no man’s land. It’s too operational for sales, too contextual for finance, and often too under-resourced to get the attention it needs. But unless someone owns it—or better yet, everyone shares the responsibility-it just doesn’t get done.

Let’s imagine this:A fictional beauty brand sees a spike in short-ship deductions. Sales argues they fulfilled the PO. Finance can’t disprove the claim without warehouse logs. Logistics says, “Not my department.” And just like that, the deduction goes uncontested.

What if deduction recovery worked like this instead?

• Sales flags deduction trends early and provides insight from the field

• Finance audits payments weekly and escalates discrepancies quickly

• Ops tracks shipments and documentation in a system all teams can access

• Leadership treats deduction recovery as a team sport, not an orphaned task

It’s not about finger-pointing. It’s about building a process where the right people catch the right errors at the right time.

Deductions don’t belong to just one department. HRG helps unify your teams with a recovery process that works.

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