Getting Started with Credit Recovery

Credit recovery turns three things every dispensary already has — customer returns, expired or destroyed product, and below-keystone promotions — into vendor credits that get applied against the next invoice you pay them. This page walks through what happens from the day you sign on to the day your first monthly credit memos go out. It's the partnership setup, not the math (the math lives in Credit Recovery Overview).

The whole approach is partnership-first. We're not trying to dictate to vendors, or pull a fast one. We're using your data to optimize margins at the SKU level, and asking vendors to participate so velocity stays strong and both sides come out ahead. Your existing buyer leads those relationships — we provide the software, data, credit memo generation, and initial vendor communication.

Step 0 — Data access (do this first)

Before any credit memos can be generated, we need read access to your numbers. Two things:

• Add admin@shelfspace.pro as a user in your POS (Dutchie or Flowhub today; other POSes on request). We use this to pull monthly returns, discounts, and inventory receipts. Admin-level role is fine; we only read.
• Confirm Metrc API access in track-and-trace states. If we ran an evaluation for you, this is already wired up. If we didn't, we'll send you instructions to generate an API key.

That's it for prerequisites. The rest of onboarding is on our side until your buyer's kickoff (Step 3).

Step 1 — We set up your account

The first few days after you sign on:

• We create your retailer record on the Credit Recovery plan.
• We load your team's user accounts — admin, buyer, AP / accounting — and send each person a login link.
• We configure your escalation contact (usually the buyer) so any vendor pushback later routes to a recognizable face on your side, not to us.

When you log in, you'll see a focused Credit Recovery dashboard — no consignment views, no AP module clutter. Just the credit lifecycle.

Step 2 — You give us your vendor list

The bulk vendor upload screen takes a spreadsheet or manual entry. For each vendor we want:

• Legal name + DBA — so vendor names line up with what's in your POS and Metrc data.
• State license number — used to match Metrc package chains back to the right vendor.
• AR contact (name + email) — this is who'll receive the monthly credit memo and the response thread.
• Sales rep email (name optional) — this is your buyer's day-to-day person on the vendor side. We keep them in the loop on kickoff and pre-approval requests. Email is the routing key; name is helpful context when you have it but not required.
• State, product categories, and the usual address details.

If you've already onboarded vendors for other reasons (consignment, AP), we use the records you have. There is also a good chance the vendor already exists in the ShelfSpace platform, in which case we don't need their info again from you. The list you give us at credit-recovery time is a top-up, not a replacement.

Step 3 — Your buyer sends one kickoff notification

Before the first monthly review goes out, every vendor gets one introductory email. We draft it; your buyer signs it. It goes out under your retailer identity, not under "ShelfSpace" — so the vendor sees a name they recognize as the apparent sender.

The kickoff covers what's changing:

• We're going to review the numbers with vendors each month — returns, waste, aging product, pricing, margins, promotions.
• We'll start asking vendors in advance to help out on promotions when we want to run them.
• Nothing changes about how vendors invoice us or get paid. This is on top of the relationship, not a replacement.

The buyer's direct email is on the signature so vendors know who to reach for relationship questions. Replies route through our system so the conversation is searchable and the buyer doesn't drown — but the buyer is always copied.

Step 4 — First week of every month, we run the numbers

Around the first three or four business days of every new month, we pull the prior month's data from Metrc and your POS. We assemble one monthly review per vendor — returns, destruction, and below-keystone promotions — and produce a credit memo for each.

Before anything goes out to vendors, your team reviews the credit memos in your portal. You can spot-check the math on any vendor, void any memo that doesn't look right, or hold one back for review. When you're satisfied, you click Send to Vendor on each one (or in bulk).

The vendor receives an email titled Monthly Account Review, with the credit memo PDF attached and a link back to the portal. They can approve, ask questions, or open a discussion — whatever fits the relationship.

Step 5 — Vendors approve, or open a discussion

Two paths from here:

Approve. The vendor replies "Approved" to the email, or clicks Approve in the portal. The credit memo lands in your Approved tab. Your AP team gets an email with the approved credit memo PDF attached, so the next step — applying it — happens without anyone having to dig back through the portal.

How you apply the credit depends on where your AP lives:

• If ShelfSpace runs your AP, your AP person opens the next vendor invoice you're paying inside the portal, checks the box for the approved memo, and sends. The credit is deducted from the payment amount, and the memo flips to Applied on send.
• If you run AP in another system, you have two options: download the credit memo PDF from the portal and apply it against open invoices on your end, or we email approved credit memos straight to your AP person so they don't have to log in. Your choice. The memo stays in your Approved tab as the record of what was agreed to.

Discuss. The vendor replies that they'd like to talk it through (any non-approval wording — "let's discuss," "I have a few questions," a specific counter-amount). The memo moves to In Discussion. Your buyer is looped into the email thread, and takes the conversation from there. We stay out of the relationship side of it — humans negotiate, we provide the data when asked.

Every credit memo moves through a six-stage lifecycle so you always know where things stand: Drafts → Pending Review → In Discussion → Approved → Applied → Voided (only used when something is genuinely wrong and we cancel the memo). See Approval Workflow for the detail on each stage.

Step 6 — Asking vendors in advance on promotions

One of the highest-leverage parts of credit recovery isn't the credit memo itself — it's getting vendors to chip in on promotions before they run. We surface pre-approval opportunities to your buyer monthly. The buyer proposes the promo to the vendor; the vendor approves or declines; if approved, the promotion runs as a pre-approved co-marketing arrangement.

We have worked hard to make this super easy for the buyer. The buyer can simply email the promotion to ShelfiQ, which stores it in the system to be re-surfaced on the credit memo, or the buyer can add the promotion in the ShelfSpace portal.

The more vendors are bought-in upfront, the smaller the surprise during the monthly review. It also gives you a much stronger position on the credit ask later — pre-approved promotions are uncontested by definition. See Co-Marketing Credits for how this fits with the broader co-marketing model.

Where ShelfSpace stops and your team takes over

The simplest way to describe the split:

We handle: the big one — monthly credit memo generation (the math, the PDFs, all of it). Plus data aggregation across Metrc and POS, the initial vendor kickoff (sent under your identity), clarification answers to vendor questions about the math, portal organization, and the email that delivers approved credit memos to your AP team.

Your buyer handles: vendor relationship questions, pushback, negotiation, anything that calls for a recognizable face. You own those conversations — that's how vendor trust survives the change.

Your AP team handles: applying approved credits against the next invoice you pay each vendor. One checkbox per credit memo on the payment screen.

What it looks like end to end

Day 1: you sign on. Days 2-5: we set up your account and load your team. Week 1-2: you build the vendor list, your buyer sends the kickoff. First week of the following month: we generate credit memos; your team reviews; vendors get the Monthly Account Review email. Approvals start landing within days. Your AP team applies the first credits against open invoices that same month.

By month two, the cycle is running on rails. Your buyer is having pre-approval conversations on next month's promotions. Vendor relationships are stronger because the conversations are happening against shared data, not against memory.