Part 4: Compliance Transactions
What is a Compliance Transaction? Any transaction that requires specific guidelines or processes outside of the normal Verde pick, pack, and ship process. This could include special labeling, packaging, price labeling, etc. as required by your vendor(i.e. retailer or trading partner). If you are selling your products to major retailers in the US market such as Kohl’s, Target, Walmart, REI, Nordstrom, etc., these specific transactions will flow through our Compliance Department. Verde’s Compliance Team understands the complexities involved with your vendor’s routing guides. If one little tiny element is missed during the processing of these transactions, you could be subject to a large chargeback. Our Compliance Team works diligently to prevent that from happening.
Starting Out: When you start selling to a large retailer requiring the services of our Compliance Team, you will need to ensure you have all the proper documentation from your retailer. They all have Routing Guides, Compliance Guides, EDI guides, and/or Packing Guides which you need to get from them and send a copy via email to Verde’s Onboarding Team. They will review the guides and communicate any concerns with you to make sure the process is completely clear.
Shipping Code: For any compliance transactions, the Method of Shipment must be designated as “VC1” which routes the transaction through the Compliance Department. Without having this on your transaction, the transaction will automatically route through our normal pick/pack process without compliance involvement, which can result in delays and chargebacks.
Expectations: All Compliance transactions require extra time and effort to make absolutely correct. Plan ahead for increased processing time. Company guidelines sometimes require routing by a third party or freight shipping. This generally requires 24-48 hours to process and ship. Small transactions of 1-3 cartons are usually processed within 72-96 hours depending on FIFO transaction flow. Larger transactions of over 3 cartons and over 100 units have specific packing/shipping requirements per your trading partner. Plan ahead and submit these transactions at least two weeks prior to the intended shipping windows.
Adding New Vendors: Each time you add a new vendor requiring vendor compliance, please plan ahead and get Agreements and vendor routing guides signed and sent well ahead of time to your Client Success Coordinator. We require at least 14 business days to have our Compliance Team set up the correct accounts and become fully versed in the guidelines before we can process an transaction.
Charges: Because of the extra time required to process compliance transactions, Verde charges for the labor time to specially pack, document, route, build/print labels, and send ship notices required for these transactions. Normal pick/pack fees apply along with compliance transaction processing time charges.
Over-Communicate: We cannot stress enough how important it is to over-communicate with your Verde Client Success Coordinator about any large compliance transaction or new vendors with large transactions. You cannot communicate enough about this. Your Client Success Coordinator will base transaction processing times and expectations on information provided to them and those guidelines will be followed by the Compliance Team when processing your transactions.
Chargebacks: You have 30 days from once a shipment leaves Verde to notify your Client Success Coordinator of a possible shortage, overage or wrong product delivered. Any chargebacks because of the shortage, overage, or wrong product delivered, that come to Verde past the 30 days after receipt, will not be accepted. If Verde is notified within the 30-day time frame from receipt, Verde will conduct an investigation into these issues. If it is found that Verde did ship a shortage, overage, or wrong product delivered, Verde will accept responsibility and make it right for you and your customer. If it is found that Verde was not at fault, you will be billed for time spent on labor for the investigation. If a chargeback occurs as a result of negligent transaction management from the client, Verde will not be held responsible. Any delivery inquiries about shipping errors outside of the chargeback window will not be accepted by Verde.
The Extra Key Information:
Transactions must be submitted to Verde’s WMS with the correct PO# and shipping dates at a minimum of two weeks prior to the beginning of the shipping window.
Transactions must be submitted a minimum of two weeks prior to the shipping window for any compliance transactions in excess of 25 units.
Compliance transactions with 25 units or less qualify for the “VC FastLane” with a 3-day turnaround. All units must be 100% allocated and routing instructions and guidelines approved by the Verde Compliance Team ahead of time.
SKUs listed on vendor PO must match exactly SKUs listed in Verde’s WMS.
All SKUs on vendor PO must have accurate and scannable barcodes.
All inventory on vendor PO is in stock at Verde and available for picking immediately.
If inventory for a PO is coming into Verde on an inbound shipment and is not available when the shipping window begins, the shipping window will be changed to two weeks from the date the inventory is received in Verde’s WMS.
The client is responsible for adjusting the shipping window with the vendor as well as inside the vendor portal (if used).
For any chargebacks resulting from computer-specific issues related to a vendor system, Verde will not be held liable.
POs listed in the vendor’s Portal must match those in Verde’s WMS.
Late shipments due to vendor routing issues are not Verde’s responsibility.
Integrating your EDI system into Verde’s WMS is highly recommended.
Compliance Fastlane transactions (25 items/cases or less) will require 3 complete business days for preparation time. Both Routing and Shipping windows must be at least 3 business days out from the date the singular transaction becomes fully allocated in our WMS. No singular transactions can be combined with other transactions to ship together.