Finding margin leakage is one thing. Getting it back is a different conversation. During a recent webinar hosted in partnership with IFMA, Dean Rallo, Solutions Advisor at iTradeNetwork, talked through the realities of revenue recovery and what becomes possible when the process is actually working.

Recovery Is a Business Decision, Not Just a Process One

When a double dip or invalid rate gets identified, the path forward is rarely as simple as filing a chargeback. The partner on the other end of that claim is often one of the largest customers in the portfolio, and that relationship carries weight that a spreadsheet does not capture.

The role of a well-run trade spend program is to surface the information clearly and put the decision in the right hands. Some organizations want to know about discrepancies and handle them internally. Others pursue chargebacks directly. There is no single right answer. What matters is that the team has accurate, well-documented information before they walk into that conversation.

What Recovery Looks Like in Practice

Rallo noted that iTradeNetwork typically identifies between seven and ten percent of claims that involve duplicate submissions or invalid rates. Each situation carries its own recovery rate.

An item claimed against a contract it was never supposed to be on is often straightforward to resolve. The documentation is clear, and the conversation is relatively direct. A duplicate claim is harder. It requires proof and a well-structured case before it can be presented to a distributor or operator. Some distributors have their own portals for filing disputes, and some charge a fee to do it, which raises the stakes on getting the submission right the first time.

Even when a dollar-for-dollar recovery is not the outcome, identifying the discrepancy and having that conversation with the right partner still has value. It builds credibility and reduces the likelihood of the same issue coming up again.

What Becomes Possible When Recovery Time Goes Down

The less visible cost of chasing lost revenue is what the team is not doing while they are doing it. Finance analysts working through manual reconciliation are not analyzing the business. Sales teams waiting on accurate data are not out building it.

"Working in the business, not on the business," is how Rallo framed it. A well-structured program frees that time up and redirects it toward decisions that drive growth rather than decisions that recover from gaps.

A three to four percent reduction in leakage on a program of any meaningful size turns into real money. But Rallo was equally pointed about the time dimension. "If you could save just three to four percent of your time, let alone money," he said, "I think we'd see much more specific trade spend programs being more efficient."

Reinvesting Recovered Margin Back Into Growth

The more strategic question is what happens once that margin comes back. Rallo's answert: put it back into the business where it can generate a return.

Many manufacturers budget a set percentage for trade spend without full visibility into what it is actually costing them. A program that appears to run at five percent may be running closer to eight once leakage is factored in. Closing that gap does not just stop the bleed. It frees up capital to invest in new partner programs and growth initiatives that were not possible before.

"We all want to grow," Rallo said. "It's a tight margin business, and growth doesn't come easy. So we want to be as strategic as possible." Recovering lost revenue is part of that strategy. Knowing where it went, and having the documentation to support getting it back, is where it starts.

To get a clearer picture of what margin leakage may be costing your program, our 30-second Trade Spend Program Health Check gives you a baseline assessment in under a minute.

Wondering what a recovery process could look like for your specific program? Schedule time with an iTradeNetwork trade spend expert to find out.