Promotion claims checked against the deal before you pay them.

Weeks after a promotion ends, the claims start. A retailer bills back for units it scanned, a distributor sends a billback invoice with a detail file, a broker forwards a claim with a deal number on it. Some customers wait for your check or credit memo; others send the backup and take the amount from your next payment. Either way, someone has to work out how much is owed.

For the test, AI goes back over claims your team already settled. Each gets the agreement and deal sheet it matched, the claimed units and rate beside what the data supports, and a drafted call: pay in full, pay part with the gap shown, or hold for missing backup. No money moves. Your reviewer lays each call next to what your analyst actually paid.

Which dates apply. A promotion rarely has one date range. Buy-in dates, when a customer can buy at the allowance rate, often open before the in-store dates to cover orders placed ahead of the shelf date, while a scan claim counts only units sold inside the scan dates. Retailers add rules of their own: Kroger's published vendor requirements ask for billback periods that begin on a Sunday or Monday and end on a Friday or Saturday. The draft tests each line against the range that fits its claim type and names the range it used.

Where the units come from. A scan claim rests on the retailer's point-of-sale counts; a billback on purchases rests on what the customer bought from you. In beer, wine and spirits, a depletion allowance is a rebate on the distributor's sales to retailers over a set period, and states set the rules: Maryland requires a beer supplier to offer the same allowance and conditions to all of its Maryland wholesalers at once. Those depletion reports often come through VIP, long a source of daily depletion data for beer brands. The draft sets the claimed units beside your figures and shows each gap.

Foodservice deviations. A brand often agrees a contract price with a foodservice operator below its list price. The distributor still buys from you at list, sells at the contract price and bills you the difference. Gordon Food Service's published supplier billing policy, for example, accrues these sales allowances daily, processes them by its fiscal week, emails a summary PDF with a detailed CSV by item and distribution center, and collects by deduction. The draft confirms the operator is on the agreement, the price was in force on the invoice date, and the difference per case is the one you agreed.

Caps, flat fees and proof it ran. Kroger's vendor requirements describe a billback with a limit, which its contract desk turns into a lump sum with the limit entered; a claim past the limit stops there. A flat fee for an ad or a display is owed once the ad ran or the display went up, so the draft looks for the ad page or the store photo first. Kroger also asks that each contract's notes name the brokerage or vendor first, with a cash control number, and the draft carries those references through.

Where your reviewer looks. Your reviewer, the person who knows these claims best, is usually a trade spend analyst or whoever in finance signs off claims today. They look hardest at errors that cost money either way: a per-unit scan rate paid on cases, units counted outside the dates that apply, a claim paid past its cap, and a fair claim held until the customer simply deducts it.

Once your reviewer says yes, claims that arrive over the next 30 days or so get the same check.

Nothing is paid on the AI's word: someone on your trade or finance team approves every call before a check is cut, a credit memo goes out or a deduction is accepted. The reviewer keeps comparing as the claims come in.

The month covers promotion claims and nothing else.