At a Glance
- Your credit recovery settings live under Credits → Settings — set them once before your first batch of memos goes out
- Credit Recovery Defaults set the coverage rates the platform uses to size every memo — target retail margin, returns & waste, co-marketing, and aging markdowns
- Categories on the report pick which credit types the wizard drafts; Auto-Approve on Silence decides whether documented credits book automatically when a vendor doesn't reply
- Turn on email delivery to send every approved memo — with its CSV summary and PDF — straight to your accounting team
- Defaults are sensible out of the box; you can start with them untouched and tune any rate per vendor later
Before you send your first credit memos, spend five minutes in your credit recovery settings so the numbers come out the way you want and approved memos land where your books live. Everything here sits under Credits → Settings in the portal. This guide walks the four things worth setting up front: your coverage rates, which credit types make the report, what happens when a vendor goes quiet, and where approved memos get emailed.
You only do this once. The platform carries these settings forward every month, and a rate you set as a default becomes the starting point for every new vendor — while any vendor you've tuned individually keeps its own rate.
Set Your Coverage Rates in Credit Recovery Defaults
The Credit Recovery Defaults card holds the rates the platform uses to size each memo. These are your house rules; they apply to every vendor unless that vendor overrides them. You edit each rate in place, and the defaults you see are already reasonable starting points — most retailers leave them alone for the first month and tune per vendor once real replies start coming in.
| Rate | What it controls | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Target Retail Margin | The margin line below which a sale counts as below-keystone and becomes eligible for co-marketing. Used for vendors that don't carry their own margin. | 50% |
| Returns / Waste Coverage | The vendor's share of return & destruction cost. Starting rate for new vendors — each vendor's own rate governs once set. | 100% |
| Co-Marketing Coverage | The vendor's share of the below-keystone shortfall. Starting rate for new vendors — each vendor's own rate governs once set. | 50% |
| Aging Markdown Coverage | The vendor's share on aged-inventory markdowns. Left unset, it follows each vendor's co-marketing rate. | = co-marketing |
| Credit Memo Fee | What we charge you per recovered memo — flat, and only on memos that actually come back. | $20.00 |
To push a rate onto every existing vendor at once rather than only new ones, use the Default Terms card on your main settings page. For how these rates translate into a finished memo line by line, see generating credit memos yourself.
Choose Which Credit Types Land on the Report
Next to the rates, the Categories on the report toggles decide which credit types the wizard drafts when you run recovery. There are three switches:
- Returns & Destruction — returned and destroyed product, credited back against vendor payments.
- Co-Marketing — pre-approved, vendor-funded promotions where you sold below keystone.
- Aging Markdowns / Price Drops — the markdowns you took to move aging inventory before it walked.
Leave all three on to capture the most credit. Turn one off only if you don't want that credit type on your memos at all — for example, if you handle destruction credits outside ShelfSpace. Each of these maps to a source you can dig into: return credits, co-marketing credits, and expiration and aging credits.
Decide What Happens When a Vendor Goes Quiet
Vendors often don't reply to a credit memo — not because they disagree, but because it's one more email. The Auto-Approve on Silence switches decide what the platform does with a documented credit when the review window passes with no response. There's one switch per credit type:
- Returns & Destruction — book the deemed returns credit automatically instead of parking it for your review.
- Co-Marketing — book the deemed pre-approved co-marketing credit automatically.
- Aging Markdowns — book the deemed aging-markdown / price-drop credit automatically.
These default to off — when the window passes with no reply, a documented credit parks in your queue for your review instead of booking on its own. Flip any of them on and that credit type auto-approves on silence, which keeps recovery moving without you chasing signatures. Either way, a memo only auto-approves on silence — the moment a vendor actually replies, ShelfiQ works their answer instead. For the full picture of the three vendor responses and the silence window, read the credit memo approval process.
Route Approved Memos to Your Accounting Team
The last setting decides where a memo goes the moment it's approved. Turn on Email approved credit memos to my team and the platform sends each approved memo — with a CSV summary and the memo PDFs — straight to whoever books your credits. Add your accounting email to the recipient list, and choose whether each memo goes out on its own as it's approved or gets batched. This is the piece that closes the loop if you recover credits in ShelfSpace but record them in your own accounting system.
That's its own short setup — see send approved credit memos to your accounting team for the recipient options, what your bookkeeper receives, and how to export past memos. If your books live in QuickBooks, pair it with the QuickBooks sync so credits land as bills without re-keying.
Send Your First Batch
With your rates, categories, silence rules, and delivery set, you're ready. Open your drafts in Credits → Drafts, review the memos the wizard built, and click Send to Vendor to put them in front of your vendors. From there, ShelfiQ fields the replies and drives each memo to approved, a partial amount, or declined — you can read how that works here.
That's the whole setup. Everything you set here carries forward month to month, so credit recovery becomes a few minutes of review instead of a project. Want the bigger picture first? Start with how credit recovery works, or see the credit recovery system that turns returns, destruction, and co-marketing into monthly memos.