A cannabis vendor credit memo asks for money back — for product returned at the register, expired on the shelf, destroyed via Metrc, or promised under a pre-approved promotion. The vendor reviews the memo and has a defined window to respond. Most do, most of the time. But some vendors miss the email. Some are short-staffed. Some are slow on purpose. And until 2026 there was no clean answer for what should happen on silence — the credit just sat in limbo, the retailer waited, the vendor relationship slowly degraded.
ShelfSpace solved that. Here's what actually happens when a cannabis vendor doesn't respond to a credit memo: the 10-business-day window, the deemed-approval mechanic, the specific carve-out for co-marketing the vendor never pre-approved, and the 60-day window vendors always keep to dispute. This piece is for both retailers ("what happens next on a credit I sent two weeks ago and never heard back on?") and vendors ("what happens if I miss the email this once?").
The 10-business-day review window
When the platform sends a cannabis vendor a credit memo, the memo lands in the vendor's portal and email inbox the same day. From the moment they receive it, they have 10 business days to respond. The vendor portal shows the memo line by line — every returned unit with its package ID, every expired SKU with its Metrc disposition reference, every co-marketing credit tied to the specific promotion that authorized it. The vendor reads the same data the retailer's AP person reads.
The platform sends reminder notifications before the window closes — through email, through in-app notifications in the vendor portal, and through ShelfiQ when the vendor emails about something else that touches the memo (an invoice payment, a settlement, a check). The reminder cadence is calibrated to give the vendor real time to act, not just a one-shot notification that lands during their busy week and gets buried.
The four response paths a cannabis vendor can take
Inside the 10-business-day window, the vendor's portal presents four ways to respond to a credit memo. Three are active responses; the fourth is the no-response path that this post is mostly about.
Approve
Vendor agrees with the memo as written. The credit moves to Applied status and is queued for deduction on the vendor's next outgoing payment from the retailer. Cleanest outcome, most common path.
Propose adjustment
Vendor agrees with the credit in principle but proposes a different amount on one or more lines (different return quantity, different co-marketing rate). The platform routes the counter-proposal to the retailer's AP person; mutual agreement applies the adjusted amount.
Open a discussion / dispute
Vendor disagrees with one or more lines and wants to talk it through. Status moves to In Discussion. The platform tracks the back-and-forth in the portal; resolution typically lands within a few days because everyone is working off the same Metrc and POS data.
Silence
Vendor takes no action by Day 10. The documented portion is deemed approved and applied on the next payment. The un-pre-approved co-marketing portion waits for an explicit yes. Vendor retains the 60-day dispute right.
What "deemed approval" actually covers — and what it doesn't
The deemed-approval mechanic only triggers on silence past Day 10, and even then it's not a blanket approval. It's specifically scoped to the documented portion of the credit memo — the parts where the underlying evidence is unambiguous on the platform side. That means:
What deems on silence:
- Returns. Customer returns flow through the retailer's POS and are reconciled against Metrc. The platform has line-level evidence: which unit, which package ID, which return reason, which Metrc disposition. Vendor silence here deems on the documented amount.
- Product destruction. Cannabis product destroyed via Metrc's waste workflow leaves a regulatory audit trail. The credit memo carries the Metrc waste reference. Vendor silence here deems on the documented amount because the destruction record is independently verifiable.
- Pre-approved co-marketing. Co-marketing credits tied to a promotion the vendor specifically pre-approved (rate, products, period, terms all agreed in advance). The vendor said yes upfront; the credit just executes that agreement. Vendor silence at month-end deems on the documented amount because the prior approval still stands.
What does NOT deem on silence — the carve-out:
- Un-pre-approved co-marketing. Any co-marketing credit the vendor never specifically pre-approved — a promotional discount the retailer ran without first getting vendor sign-off on the rate, period, or product scope. The platform won't deem these on silence. They wait for an explicit vendor yes. This protects vendors from getting hit with charges they never agreed to fund, even by accident.
For details on how co-marketing credits are documented and pre-approved, see Co-Marketing Credits and the vendor pre-approval SOP for promotions. The discipline of getting vendor sign-off before running a promotion is exactly what makes the documented portion deemed-approvable when the vendor goes silent on the resulting credit memo — and it's the same discipline that keeps the discount off your own margin in the first place, which we cover in why advance vendor approval improves your margins.
Deemed approval isn't a backdoor. It's a tightly scoped mechanic that only applies to credits the vendor already had every chance to verify against Metrc + POS data, plus their own prior pre-approval. The carve-out for un-pre-approved co-marketing is the safety valve.
The 60-day dispute right that comes after
A credit being deemed approved doesn't mean it's untouchable. Vendors keep 60 days after any credit is applied — whether it was approved by active response, mutual counter-proposal agreement, or deemed approval on silence — to come back and dispute. The 60-day right exists specifically so the deemed-approval mechanic is never the final word.
A vendor dispute opens a fresh review cycle: the credit moves back into In Discussion status, the retailer's AP person gets notified, and the dispute conversation runs on the same Metrc + POS data both sides have access to. Most disputed deemed-approved credits resolve quickly because the underlying evidence either supports the credit (vendor was right to question it but the data is solid) or doesn't (vendor sees the math and accepts).
The 60-day window also gives vendors a safety net for the genuine case where they missed the original notification — vacation, staffing turnover, email filtering, whatever. Missing the 10-day window doesn't lock them out of contesting the credit; it just shifts the burden from "respond within 10" to "dispute within 60." Practically, this matters: it preserves the working relationship between retailers and vendors even when the operational machinery moves forward without explicit vendor input.
What the retailer sees, what the vendor sees
From the retailer side, the credit memo flow shows up in the credit recovery dashboard with a status indicator: Pending Vendor Response, In Discussion, Applied, Disputed. Most retailers click in once a week to see what's queued. The platform handles the reminder cadence; the retailer's AP person handles the judgment calls (counter-proposals, disputes, the un-pre-approved co-marketing conversations).
From the vendor side, the credit memo lands in their portal with full line-level breakdown. They see exactly which units, which dates, which Metrc references back every line. The portal also shows them every credit memo's current status, the deemed-approval date if they don't respond, and their 60-day dispute window for any applied credit. The transparency is the point — the deemed-approval mechanic only works because vendors have every reasonable chance to see and respond first.
For the vendor's view of the full credit memo PDF (what they actually receive), see Anatomy of a Cannabis Vendor Credit Memo. For the underlying mechanics that drive each line type, see the credit memo approval process doc.
Why this matters for cannabis retailers
Before the deemed-approval mechanic existed, the operational reality of cannabis credit recovery was: send the memo, wait for a response, follow up if needed, escalate, follow up again. Credits sat in limbo for weeks. Retailers gave up on chasing the smaller ones because the time cost exceeded the recovery value. Tens of thousands of dollars per year of legitimate vendor obligations evaporated because nobody had the operational bandwidth to chase silence.
The 10-business-day window with deemed approval changes the math. Documented credits get applied on a defined schedule whether or not the vendor responds, with reasonable reminder cadence and a 60-day dispute escape valve to keep the relationship intact. Credits stop sitting in limbo. The smaller credits that previously weren't worth chasing are still recovered because chasing isn't required.
Operators with a meaningful vendor list typically see recovery rates climb in the first month of running on the platform — not because more is being charged, but because more of what was always owed actually flows. See the credit recovery service page for the full model, or a sample case study for what the recovery numbers look like in practice at a real Massachusetts dispensary.
Why this matters for cannabis vendors
The deemed-approval mechanic also serves vendors — even though on first read it might look like it cuts the other way. Three reasons:
- You always see the credit first. The platform sends the memo to your portal + email on Day 0 with full line-by-line evidence. You have 10 business days to respond before anything happens. Reminders cover the inbox-overflow case.
- The carve-out protects you on co-marketing. Un-pre-approved promotional credits never deem on silence. The platform respects your prior sign-off (or absence of it) as the source of truth on whether co-marketing dollars apply.
- The 60-day window is your safety net. Even if you miss the 10-day notification entirely, you have 60 days after the credit is applied to dispute. Real vendor mistakes — out-of-office during the window, email filter caught the memo, staffing turnover — don't permanently cost you.
If you're a cannabis vendor seeing credit memos in the ShelfSpace vendor portal for the first time and want the full picture, see the vendors page for the broader portal experience and the vendor dispute walkthrough for how to push back when something doesn't look right.
The short version
A cannabis vendor has 10 business days to respond to a credit memo. The platform sends the memo, sends reminders, and tracks the response. On silence past Day 10, the documented portion (returns, destruction, pre-approved co-marketing) can be deemed approved and applied. Un-pre-approved co-marketing waits for an explicit yes. The vendor keeps 60 days after the credit applies to dispute. Nothing is final behind their back, but credits stop sitting in limbo either.
If your dispensary has been carrying credit-memo limbo as a recurring operational frustration, get in touch for an evaluation — we'll size what's been sitting unrecovered in your last 90 days of vendor activity.