There's a small hesitation a lot of operators feel right before they send a batch of vendor credit memos: and now the replies start. One vendor wants to know how you got to $312 on returns. Another swears the co-marketing rate was different. A third just wants to argue. Historically, that's a week of email you didn't budget for — and the reason a lot of legitimate credits never got sent in the first place.
So the fair question is: does ShelfiQ answer vendor questions on my credit memos? Short answer — yes, automatically, for every credit memo you send, whether or not you've set up an AP inbox. Here's exactly how that works, and why the "AP inbox" thing trips people up.
Yes — and you're not the one in the inbox
When you send your monthly credit memos, each one goes out under your business name. But the reply-to address routes the vendor's response to ShelfiQ. So the moment a vendor hits "Reply" — with a question, a partial-approval offer, or a flat no — their message lands with ShelfiQ, not in your personal inbox. ShelfiQ reads the reply, answers using your actual returns and memo detail, and drives the memo to a resolution. You're not on the thread.
ShelfiQ isn't emailing your vendors into submission. It facilitates and executes; it never negotiates or advocates on your behalf. When a conversation needs a human, you're notified and can step back in. For the full mechanics of the outcomes and what happens on silence, the credit memo approval process doc walks it line by line.
The three outcomes ShelfiQ drives to
A vendor's reply always resolves to one of three things. A question isn't a fourth option — it's just part of the conversation on the way to one of these:
Approved
The vendor accepts the full credit memo. It moves to applied and is queued against their next payment.
A partial amount
The vendor accepts a specific dollar figure. ShelfiQ adjusts the memo to that number and approves it in one step — you're notified.
Declined
The vendor explicitly declines, with a reason. It's recorded, you're notified, and your buyer can reopen the conversation.
Send your credit memos with confidence. ShelfiQ fields the vendor replies and closes each memo to approved, a partial amount, or declined — no AP inbox required.
"But I never set up an AP inbox"
This is the part that confuses people, so let's be precise. The AP email address and auto-responder stand up a dedicated inbox for your wholesale invoices — vendors and your team email invoices in, and the platform ingests and matches them. That's an accounts-payable feature. It has nothing to do with credit-memo conversations, and ShelfiQ answering your credit memo replies does not wait on it.
AP inbox (auto-responder)
Purpose: ingest & match wholesale invoices.
Setup required? Yes — you configure it.
Who emails in: vendors or your team sending invoices.
ShelfiQ on credit memos
Purpose: answer vendor questions on credit memos and resolve them.
Setup required? No — works automatically.
Who emails in: vendors replying to a memo you sent.
You can have one without the other. Set up the AP inbox only if you separately want automated wholesale-invoice handling — see managing deliveries and invoices by email for that side of the house. The credit-memo replies are handled either way.
Good to know
Two small things worth keeping in mind so replies land cleanly:
- New vendor email addresses. ShelfiQ matches a replying vendor by their email. A reply from a brand-new, never-seen address may not be auto-recognized — keep your vendor contacts current so nothing falls through.
- Unsubscribed vendors. If a vendor previously unsubscribed, some automated messages can be suppressed. Direct replies inside an active conversation are generally still delivered.
The short version
You send the credit memo. The vendor's reply lands with ShelfiQ, which recognizes the memo, answers the question from your real returns and destruction data, and closes it to approved, a partial amount, or declined. You see the whole conversation in your portal and get pinged when it resolves — without living in the inbox, and without setting anything up. If you want the reference version of this with the AP-inbox comparison table, it lives in the docs: does ShelfiQ answer vendor questions on my credit memos?
For related reading: what happens when a vendor never responds to a credit memo, the anatomy of the credit memo your vendors actually receive, and how ShelfiQ handles first-line vendor email across the rest of your operation. If credit-memo back-and-forth has been the reason you don't chase what you're owed, get in touch for an evaluation — we'll size what's been sitting unrecovered in your last 90 days.