The Shortage Deduction That Keeps Coming Back
Supplier Intelligence Toolkit: Are Your Shortages Trying to Tell You Something?
If you see a shortage deduction just once, it may be a fluke. But if shortages keep happening, it probably means there is a process issue that deserves more attention.
Use this five-step checklist to help you find patterns in your shortage deductions.
Review the last 90 days to see if the same products, purchase orders, or distribution centers appear often in your shortage reports.
Look at your shipping and receiving records for repeated mismatches between what you shipped, what was delivered, and what the retailer confirmed.
Check your invoices for accuracy. Look for unit-of-measure mistakes, duplicate invoices, wrong quantities, or purchase orders that do not match.
Find out if most of your deductions come from certain products, carriers, facilities, or specific time periods.
Check whether the same types of deductions keep coming up, even after you thought you fixed the problem.
Your Intelligence Question:
Are we dealing with the same shortage problem over and over without solving the root cause?
A practical next step is to make a simple spreadsheet that lists shortages by retailer, distribution center, product, and month. Sort the list by total dollars and how often each shortage happens. Start by looking into the biggest recurring deduction. Your data already holds the answers you need.
Turn Insight into Action. Coming November 1.
