Amazon, part 2 – A tale of repayment?

Further to my article at the back end of April, some exciting news – Salitix has managed to get some sales audit claims repaid by Amazon (more than a year after submission admittedly). A big thumbs up to @Matthew Coote for both his audit skill and persistence. We now have a complete set – Amazon generated audit claims that we have successfully reversed and prima facie sales audit claims that Amazon have agreed to repay! It must be Black… Monday?! 

The claims related to ‘rebate’ charges on various purchases made by Amazon from our customer, where Amazon had incorrectly applied the charges outside of the agreed date parameters that the rebate was to apply. As any supplier working with Amazon will know, it’s difficult to accurately reconcile the charges back to the actual activity against which they should apply (I can tell you that trying to understand how Amazon have generated the remittance advice against the original invoices that the claim is for is far from clear). 

It’s a good moment. But getting a random claim agreed in a time frame that has no business logic, let alone the feel of a standard process, means that the real work remains ahead as we continue to press Amazon to reveal to our supplier what the process is and what we can expect in terms of validation, timings and ultimately how payments (where they are due) are made.

As I said at the end of last month… watch this space, because if you trade with Amazon, you will need the services of a forensic auditor who can accurately reconcile your trading with them. And the secret to success will be all about the system and what the process is…