This template belongs to the rebate claim reconciliation guide, which works through a disputed buying-group claim. Fill in the three parts below during one call with the commercial finance head, then compare the result with the completed Illustrative brief.
What the brief is for, and what it leaves out
The brief has one job: let the CEO decide whether to take a call. It does that by answering four questions the CEO will ask: what history exists, how far back, who keeps it, and what nobody knows yet. Everything else waits for SourceX and the company to talk directly.
Leave out, always:
- Customer, buying-group or manufacturer names.
- Rebate rates, tiers, totals or any dollar figure from the business.
- Copies of agreements, claims, credit memos or screenshots.
- Logins, exports or file samples.
- Opinions on who owns the rights or what the history might be worth.
Part 1: the company in four lines
| Line | Fill in |
|---|---|
| 1. Business | What the distributor sells and to whom, in one phrase |
| 2. Size | Full-time staff at peak; number of branches or warehouses |
| 3. Markets | Countries where it operates and the language of its records |
| 4. Programs | Customer programs, buying-group programs, vendor programs claimed from manufacturers, or a mix |
Line 4 shapes everything after it. Customer programs are usually the distributor's own records; vendor and buying-group programs bring other parties' terms, as the who-can-say-yes tree explains.
Part 2: the records grid
One row per record class. Each cell takes a system type, a year span, a rough count or "unknown".
| Record class | System | Years held | Rough volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agreements and tier versions | [Rebate tool, ERP module or spreadsheets] | [First to last year; are old versions kept?] | [Number of active programs] |
| Membership rosters with dates | [Rebate tool or group files] | [Years with join and leave dates] | [Number of groups] |
| Invoice-line purchase history | [ERP] | [Years since the current ERP go-live] | [Not needed; write "full"] |
| Claims and approvals with notes | [Rebate tool, shared folder, inbox] | [Years of claim files] | [Claims a year; share adjusted] |
| Deductions taken as rebates | [Receivables or deduction tool] | [Years of matched and written-off deductions] | [Rough count a year] |
| Credit memos | [ERP] | [Years] | [Do they quote a claim ID?] |
The deductions row is easy to forget. Microsoft documents that a customer owed a rebate can take it as a deduction on a payment, and that a deduction workbench matches, splits, denies or writes off those deductions, recording each event in a claim journal. Where a distributor uses a module like that, part of the dispute history sits in receivables rather than in the rebate tool.
Part 3: owner, signer and open question
| Field | Fill in |
|---|---|
| Record owner | Role that maintains claim files day to day |
| Signer | The CEO, who signs agreements about company data, plus counsel |
| Open question | The single most important thing nobody has confirmed |
| Access event | Rebate tool replacement, ERP migration or license end, with its documented date, or "none known" |
For the access event, use a date from a contract or project plan. If a replacement is under way, the preservation timeline shows which grid rows are at risk first.
The same brief, completed (Illustrative)
Written for this page about a fictional distributor. Every value is invented; this is not a real company, forecast or deal.
Part 1. Building products distributor selling to contractors; 430 full-time staff at peak across 22 branches; U.S. only, records in English; customer programs and buying-group programs, plus vendor programs claimed from manufacturers.
| Record class | System | Years held | Rough volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agreements and tier versions | Standalone rebate tool | Six years; superseded tiers kept as attachments | About 140 active programs |
| Membership rosters with dates | Rebate tool | Current members only; past join dates unknown | Four buying groups |
| Invoice-line purchase history | ERP | Since the 2019 ERP go-live | Full |
| Claims and approvals with notes | Rebate tool and shared folder | Six years | About 1,800 claims a year; roughly 300 adjusted |
| Deductions taken as rebates | ERP receivables | Five years | A few hundred a year |
| Credit memos | ERP | Since 2019 | Claim ID quoted on most |
Part 3. Record owner: commercial finance head, with the rebate administrator. Signer: CEO, with general counsel. Open question: whether membership dates for past buying groups were kept anywhere. Access event: rebate tool license ends at the date in its contract when the ERP module goes live.
Read it as the CEO would: six years of claims, one gap in membership history, one dated access event and a clear owner. None of it is a record. The warm introduction brief covers wording and how to disclose your referral relationship, and the client opportunity brief generator can turn the brief into a short email. For why adjusted claims matter more than routine ones, see reconciliation break notes as training data.
The introduced company needs 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded), a documented operating history, rights to license the records, and an authorized contact. Companies in the U.S., Canada and the EU qualify, as do companies in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, South Africa, Latin America, the UAE and Saudi Arabia when at least 90% of the data is in English. Partners sign the Channel Partner Agreement before submitting; the first valid introduction within the 90-day window is credited when the company submits a verified application. Buyer interest, the rights review result and any offer stay unknown until SourceX reviews it. Sponsor-backed distributors are also covered under specialty distribution.
Next step
Refer a company. Earn up to $100,000. Default reward: 25% of Actual Supplier Payout, capped at $100,000 cumulatively per referred company. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
When all three parts are filled and nothing on the leave-out list has crept in, register as a partner, confirm the distributor on who qualifies and read the program terms before the commercial finance head forwards the brief.