Deduction dispute window

Also: dispute deadline · deduction time limit · claim window

A deduction dispute window is the deadline a retailer sets for a supplier to dispute a deduction taken against an invoice payment. Miss the window and the deduction stands — regardless of whether it was valid. The money is gone, not because the claim was right, but because the clock ran out.

The windows, by deduction type

Exact deadlines are set by each retailer’s supplier agreement, but the commonly published shape:

AP chargebacks: 15–30 days. The shortest fuse — and the category most likely to contain contractual claims a supplier could actually win.
Shortage claims: around 12 months. Longer, because the evidence (proof of delivery, carrier data) takes longer to assemble on both sides.
General AP deductions: up to 24 months. The longest window — which is why these pile up unworked until a write-off threshold quietly clears them.

Why the window is the binding constraint

Validating a single trade deduction manually — was the promotion valid, did the volume hit, is the rate right, was it already settled — commonly takes two to three weeks of spreadsheet work. Against a 15–30-day chargeback window, the math fails structurally: the case takes longer to build than the window stays open. Teams triage by dollar size and let the tail expire, which trains the deductions to keep coming.

The structural fix is not faster reconstruction but pre-written evidence: if the accrual’s lineage — agreement, rule, transactions, settlement history — exists from the moment it posts, validation becomes a query that fits inside any window. How that works in practice: deduction validation.