There is no single recovery percentage that tells every CPG brand what it should collect. Your mix of valid trade spend, shortages, compliance charges, available evidence and claim age changes the opportunity. Start with documented cases instead of applying an unsupported industry average to revenue.
Use the right denominator
- Review coverage: reviewed deduction dollars divided by total deduction dollars in the same period.
- Dispute rate: submitted dispute dollars divided by reviewed deduction dollars.
- Resolved-claim recovery rate: repaid or credited dollars divided by the disputed dollars for resolved claims in the same cohort.
- Cash realization: repaid or credited dollars divided by approved dispute dollars, with pending settlements shown separately.
Do not divide this month's receipts by this month's submitted claims if the receipts relate to older deductions. Also show the share of open claims so a high rate from a small resolved subset does not hide a large backlog.
A worked example, not a benchmark
Suppose a fictional brand reviews $100,000 in deductions from one quarter and submits $12,000 of evidence-supported disputes. Of those claims, $8,000 has been resolved and $6,000 has been repaid. The remaining $4,000 is still open.
- Disputed share of reviewed dollars: $12,000 ÷ $100,000 = 12%.
- Recovery on resolved claims: $6,000 ÷ $8,000 = 75%.
- Cash received so far against all submitted claims: $6,000 ÷ $12,000 = 50%.
All three figures describe different things. None establishes what another brand can recover. Track actual repayment through remittance and cash matching, rather than marking a claim recovered when it is merely approved.
Compare like with like
Separate promotional deductions from shortages, retailer pass-through charges from distributor charges, and fresh claims from older backlogs. Record missing documentation as its own state. An unreviewed charge is not automatically invalid.
Measure cycle time from receipt to review, submission, decision and repayment. A bottleneck in document collection needs a different fix from a backlog of approved credits waiting to appear on a remittance.
Estimate opportunity from a review sample
Review a defined sample across your actual deduction types and distributors. Record the selection method, reviewed value, evidence coverage, identified errors and remaining uncertainty. If you extrapolate, label the result as an estimate and explain the assumptions. A convenience sample of the most obvious errors will overstate the wider opportunity.
Use the result in trade planning
Reconcile valid promotional deductions to the retailer and deal. Keep potential recoveries separate until settled. Trade planning in Revya uses the same actual-spend records to compare planned and realized promotion costs.
What evidence can Revya show?
The Obvi case study documents $47.3K recovered for one customer. Your recovery estimate should come from your records, not from treating that outcome as a universal rate.