What Happens After You Reply to Aurgus
Last updated: November 11, 2026
When you reply to Aurgus outreach, the first thing that happens is a question, not a calendar invite. We confirm the gap before we schedule anything. If the gap is real, we move to a structured 45-minute diagnostic. You leave with a scored gap view regardless of outcome — and an honest answer on whether Aurgus is the right fit.
Most vendor conversations start the same way. You fill out a form, someone sends a calendar link, and within 48 hours you are watching a product demo that was not designed for your specific problem. The demo is polished. It answers no questions you actually had. The sales cycle begins.
We do not start that way.
When someone replies to Aurgus outreach — or submits through the gap assessment — the first thing that happens is a question, not a calendar invite. That question is: what did the gap assessment surface for you? Or if you have not done the assessment yet: can you describe how your current rebate accrual process works?
The answer determines whether we have a conversation worth having. This article describes what actually happens after you reply — the exchange itself, what the diagnostic covers if we get there, and what you leave with regardless of outcome.
We are publishing this because transparency about process is a trust signal. If you know exactly what the first conversation covers — including the moment we tell you Aurgus is not the right fit — you are more likely to have one. If you are a CAS partner or controller considering whether to bring this to a client, you should know what your client is walking into.
The First Exchange: 15 to 20 Minutes
Before anything else, we confirm the gap.
This is a short exchange — email or a brief call, usually 15 to 20 minutes. We ask three things:
What does your current rebate accrual process look like? We want to understand whether rebate revenue is accrued mid-period against vendor commitments, or whether the first recognition event is the settlement check. These are structurally different approaches with different error surfaces, and the answer shapes everything that follows.
What does year-end settlement reconciliation look like in practice? Specifically: who does it, how long does it take, and what documents does it pull from? We are listening for whether the reconciliation is a process or a scramble.
Is the settlement what you close to? This is the question that tells us the most. If the answer is yes — if the settlement figure is what gets booked and the accrual is adjusted to match — that tells us something specific about where the gap lives.
We listen before we show anything. We do not pull up a demo. We do not share a deck. We do not ask you to sign anything. We want to understand your program structure before we make any claim about what Aurgus does or does not do for it.
If the answers to those three questions do not describe a meaningful gap — if your current process already has consistent accrual methodology, clean settlement reconciliation, and documentation that would hold up to audit — we say so. We end the conversation honestly, with a specific reason, and we do not advance the sales process. This has not happened often in our early conversations, but it will happen, and we think you should know that it can.
The Diagnostic Conversation: When the Gap Is Real
If the first exchange surfaces a real gap, we schedule a structured diagnostic. This is approximately 45 minutes, and it covers four areas in sequence.
Accrual methodology. How are rebate accruals calculated at the line level? Are they driven by purchase volume, sales volume, or a mix? Are they updated mid-period as actuals come in, or held at the original estimate? The goal here is not to judge the method — many legitimate methods exist — but to understand whether the method is documented, consistent, and applied the same way across different program types.
ERP limits. Most ERP platforms were not designed to manage multi-tier rebate programs at the accrual level. We want to understand specifically what your current platform does and does not capture — not to critique the platform choice, but to understand where manual workarounds live. Those workarounds are almost always the gap.
Settlement reconciliation. We walk through the settlement reconciliation process in detail: what triggers it, what sources it pulls from, what the typical variance between accrued and settled amounts looks like, and how that variance is documented and cleared. This is usually where the clearest gap evidence lives.
Audit documentation depth. If a rebate accrual were questioned in an audit — either internal or external — what documentation exists to support the original accrual estimate, the mid-period adjustments, and the final settlement match? We are asking whether the audit trail is complete or reconstructed.
By the end of the diagnostic, two things are true. You have a scored gap view across those four dimensions — not a qualitative impression but a structured assessment of where your current process is strong and where it is not. And we have enough information to tell you honestly whether Aurgus is the right tool for your program mix.
One caveat worth stating: this process is designed but not yet battle-tested at scale. We have run early versions of this conversation, and the structure reflects what we have learned from those. The diagnostic framework maps directly to the governance requirements in the rebate accounting literature and surfaces the gaps that matter — but we have not done this hundreds of times. We want you to know that.
What You Leave With, Regardless of Outcome
Whether the diagnostic leads to an Aurgus engagement or not, you leave the conversation with something specific.
A scored gap view across four dimensions. Not a summary impression — a structured assessment of where your current rebate accounting process sits against each of the four areas the diagnostic covers. You can take this back to your team or your client regardless of whether Aurgus is part of the solution.
A description of what adequate governance looks like for your program structure. What accrual methodology documentation should exist. What settlement reconciliation should produce. What audit trail depth is appropriate for your program complexity. This is specific to your situation.
If Aurgus is the right fit: a proposed engagement scope and a pointer to our pricing, which is published and does not change based on who is asking.
If Aurgus is not the right fit: an honest statement of why, and what would need to be different for it to be. That might be program complexity, ERP configuration, or something specific to how the client relationship is structured. We will tell you clearly.
What We Do Not Do in the First Conversation
We think this is worth stating plainly.
We do not show you a product tour before understanding your process. A demo of Aurgus before we know what your current process looks like is not useful to either of us. You cannot evaluate a tool against a problem you have not articulated.
We do not ask you to sign anything. No NDA, no confidentiality agreement, no letter of intent. If you want to share sensitive program details, you can. If you do not, the diagnostic can still surface useful information.
We do not obscure pricing. Our pricing is at /pricing/ and has been there since before you heard of Aurgus. There is no negotiation, no enterprise tier, no “let’s talk about your budget.”
We do not give you a follow-up deck. We will send you the scored gap assessment and a proposed scope if one is warranted. That is what is actionable.
If You Are Ready to Have This Conversation
If you have already completed the gap assessment and it surfaced a gap, you can reply directly to the outreach you received. That is the fastest path.
If you want to understand the full diagnostic framework before committing to the conversation, it is documented at /answers/rebate-accounting-diagnostic/. That page covers what each of the four areas involves and what a gap score in each area means.
If you have not yet done the gap assessment, start at /erp-rebate-gap-assessment/. The assessment takes less than ten minutes and will tell you whether the diagnostic conversation is worth having.
We built our methodology in public, and you can read how it was constructed at /answers/aurgus-methodology/. If your first instinct when a vendor says “we’re transparent about our process” is skepticism, that is where you should start.
If you want to run the full self-evaluation before scheduling, see How to evaluate Aurgus before you buy it.
For a detailed breakdown of the first 90 days after the diagnostic conversation, see What the First 90 Days With Aurgus Looks Like.