Vendor & Supplier Rebate Agreement: Expert’s Guide

Suppliers are constantly seeking ways to maintain their vendor agreements and form long-term partnerships with their customers. One way to do this is through a supplier rebate agreement. But, along with any type of rebate comes a fair share of proper accounting methods for tracking and payouts. 

We’re going to answer, “What is a vendor rebate?” and see how any rebate accounting entry can be seamlessly managed with the help of finance automation software.

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What is a Rebate?

A rebate is a retroactive payment back to a customer after a purchase has been made. The goal of a rebate contract is to drive more sales by effectively making the price of a good or service lower after the transaction has gone through. 

Rebates work much like a discount in theory, but a discount happens at the point of sale, rather than after the fact. This difference changes how rebates must be accounted for as money that comes in for a sale will get paid back to the buyer after the fact. 

What are Supplier Rebates?

Supplier rebates are rebates provided to merchants and distributors by suppliers. 

When a customer buys a predetermined quantity or value amount of a good or service, then the supplier returns a portion of the purchase price back to them. Supplier rebates can be used to promote higher sales volume and also incentivize long-standing customer relationships. 

Think about it like this, if a merchant has an option to buy from Supplier A or Supplier B, but Supplier A will provide a rebate once the customer buys X amount of goods, then the customer has a reason to want to continue to work with Supplier A. 

What is the Difference Between a Supplier Rebate vs Customer Rebate?

A supplier and a customer rebate are the same thing, just from different perspectives. For customers buying from a supplier, it’s considered dealing with a supplier rebate. If you’re on the supplier side providing the rebate to a customer, then you’re working with customer rebates. 

Either way you look at it, a supplier rebate provides a win-win scenario. Customers get to pay less for goods and services, while suppliers get to maintain relationships and boost profits. 

However, for suppliers offering customer rebates, there’s a lot of accounting and tracking that has to be done to fulfill them. Rather than having to manually track every transaction by hand, suppliers can leverage a rebate automation software to perform the due diligence. 

Finance automation software with this offering grants a way to connect data across systems, perform transaction matching against supplier rebate agreements, and execute the correct and timely payout of a rebate to ensure customer satisfaction. 

What to Know About Managing Supplier Rebates?

Managing supplier rebates consists of many moving parts and a lot of different information from various departments within the business. From constructing the rebate agreement, which typically is performed by sales and marketing teams, to tracking sales and paying customers what they are owed (a responsibility of the accounting team), it’s necessary for data to flow seamlessly within an organization. 

A rebate management system makes this possible and seamless to do. With a top-notch rebate automation system, businesses can automatically calculate accounting needs, promote more sales, and maintain solid customer relationships. 

Rebate management software takes the hassle out of managing and executing rebate agreements. 

What are Vendor Rebate Agreements?

Vendor rebate agreements stipulate what merchants must do to be eligible to receive the rebate. The rebate agreement can be drafted in endless ways, depending on the supplier’s goal. 

Based on what they are trying to accomplish, the vendor rebate agreement may be designed to promote a vendor to purchase a certain product type or increase their purchase value over a set period of time, for example. 

When the vendor has successfully completed what is deemed necessary by the vendor rebate agreement, they can apply for the rebate. And, once approved by the supplier, the rebate is granted back. 

It’s of utmost importance for the vendor rebate agreement to be specifically laid out and defined as to avoid confusion and discrepancies to protect the relationship between vendor and supplier. 

What is the Difference Between a Rebate vs Discount?

As touched upon before, both rebates and discounts are used to incentivize more sales. However, the main difference between the two is about when they take place. 

A discount, or coupon, is applied when the sale is being made. In turn, customers pay a lower amount for a good or service on the spot. 

A rebate is retroactive, meaning that the sale goes through at the regular price at that point in time. Then, the customer can request a rebate to receive a portion of the sales price back (whether it’s a flat rate or a percentage). Once the supplier has approved the rebate, such that it meets the conditions that were stipulated by the rebate agreement, the customer can receive the returned amount. 

One reason why some suppliers choose to work with rebates rather than discounts is that discounts can end up diluting the brand value. At the same time, if a supplier offers recurring discounts, it can drive the market price down for the good or service because competitors may find the need to continuously undercut one another to gain market share. 

When to Use a Supplier Rebate Agreement?

A supplier rebate agreement is a great option to use as an alternative to discounts. If you’re looking to boost sales or incentivize long-term vendor relationships, a supplier rebate agreement can offer these benefits. 

Additionally, rebate agreements provide immense flexibility in how you can set them up and customize them based on the business goal. For example, there are volume incentive rebates, if you’re looking to sell a high volume of specific goods. 

Or, you can create a product mix rebate incentive. A product mix rebate is a useful approach if you have both low-margin and high-margin products. By bundling low-margin, yet popular SKUs, with high-margin and less purchased goods, you can promote the sales of the higher margin items. 

What are Best Practice Tips for Negotiating Supplier Rebates?

As a merchant or vendor that’s looking to take advantage of supplier rebates, negotiation can be on the table! 

In order to negotiate supplier rebates that work in everybody’s best interest, consider the following tips:

1. Think About the Supplier Side

Mutually beneficial relationships is what rebates are all about. As a merchant, you undoubtedly wish to cut your costs. At the same time, suppliers want to maximize their profits. 

By thinking of the situation from both sides, you can negotiate for a rebate that promotes the long-term sales of goods with loyalty as a major perk. For example, if you spend X amount on goods or buy Y quantity of a good, then a rebate can be thought of as a reward. 

2. Boost Business

Say you’re in the market for several goods, but you currently only buy some of them from Supplier A. If this is how it has to remain, then think about a growth rebate. 

This is a rebate that is offered once a customer surpasses a threshold spent on a good over time beyond the baseline. Or, you can consider a product mix rebate, in which case you’d buy more than just good A from Supplier A. You’d mix up the bag! 

3. Leverage Technology

Make use of finance automation software to track your rebates and analyze what’s working in your business’ favor. This holds true for both suppliers and merchants. If a merchant has many rebate agreements in action across suppliers, it’s important to make sure they are receiving rebates in a timely manner once they qualify for them. 

From a supplier side, it’s pertinent to pay out rebates that are owed to vendors and merchants to maintain solid working relationships. 

What are the Benefits of a Rebate Management Platform?

Using a rebate management platform makes it easier on the entire organization to execute and track rebates. 

Rather than having to manually work across spreadsheets and track invoices, rebate management software pulls everything together in a centralized location. 

It places transactions against rebate agreements in place to confirm and approve whatever purchase is eligible to receive or pay out (depending on what perspective you’re working from). 

With a rebate management platform, you can expect:

• Process automation 
• Better cash flow 
• Improved margins due to accurate price calculations 
• Enhanced supplier and vendor relationships 
• Boosted profits 
• Less disputes and issues 

Additionally, you can store historical data to better analyze and understand how rebates have fared in the past. This helps to create more optimal rebate agreements in the future to maximize profits and improve decision-making capabilities. 

Rebate management software streamlines processes and activities across your business’ departments. While sales and marketing teams can focus on their duties, finance teams don’t have to remain bogged down with manual data entry and calculations. 

Instead, they can better allocate their time and energy towards strategic initiatives and value-add tasks, all the while ensuring that customers get paid the rebates they deserve on time and accurately. 

Wrapping Up

A supplier rebate agreement is an advantageous business technique to increase profits and maintain happy working relationships with merchants and distributors. Since there are so many variables involved and ways to creatively design a supplier rebate agreement, rebate management software can be considered to be a must-have tool when working with rebates. 

By automating the rebate processes, suppliers and merchants can rest assured that transactions are tracked properly and rebates get paid out in a timely and accurate manner.