DIRECT ANSWER
Code 22 means “Goods Billed Not Shipped”: Walmart recorded fewer units received than you invoiced. File the dispute in APDP through Retail Link and attach carrier-signed proof showing the purchase order and billed case quantities; the outcome depends on evidence that those quantities arrived.
Walmart claim code 22 is “Goods Billed Not Shipped”: an accounts-payable deduction Walmart takes when the quantity on your invoice is higher than the quantity its facility recorded receiving against that purchase order. You dispute it in APDP, the Accounts Payable Disputes Portal, reached through Retail Link, by attaching delivery proof: a carrier-signed bill of lading or proof of delivery showing the PO number and the case quantities you billed. Shortage-family codes like 22 are portal disputes: Walmart routes them through APDP and has no buyer lane for them. Inside Walmart’s filing window and under the matching reason code, whether you win comes down to whether the freight paperwork proves the billed quantity physically arrived.
What actually triggers a code 22 deduction?
A code 22 posts when the invoiced quantity on a PO exceeds the quantity Walmart’s facility recorded receiving. Walmart pays what its receiving records show and deducts the difference. The deduction is a symptom; the mismatch has a small number of recurring causes.
The common ones: invoicing before receiving was finalized, so the invoice matched against an incomplete receipt; split deliveries, where one PO arrives on more than one trailer and the invoice processes before the last trailer does; over-shipping one item to cover a shortage on another, which the matching system reads as billing for goods not shipped; and freight or carton-labeling problems, where the product arrived but wasn’t credited to the right PO. Code 22 sits in a family with 21 (concealed shortages), 24 (freight bill signed short), and 25 (no merchandise received). Same territory, different receiving fact. The claim record itself, visible in APIS with its code, description, amount, PO number, and invoice number, is Walmart’s statement of what its receiving system recorded; the same record surfaces in HighRadius and in Supplier One’s Deductions section, and the claim’s own description is the authoritative reading of that deduction.
Where do you file the dispute, and where do you not?
You find the deduction in APIS or HighRadius EIPP, and you dispute it in APDP, which is opened from the Applications menu inside Retail Link. Shortage-class claims route through the portal, and there is no buyer-payback lane for shortage codes the way there is for pricing and allowance claims.
Inside APDP, a claim notification can be flipped directly into a dispute. Each dispute requires a reason code; for a code 22 that means the quantity or receiving-discrepancy option (match on meaning rather than exact wording), and a mismatched reason code can draw an automatic denial or send the dispute to the wrong reviewer. This routing (APIS or HighRadius to find, APDP to file) is current as of July 2026. Portal names and menu locations shift; if what you see inside Retail Link differs, trust the portal.
What evidence wins a code 22 dispute?
The winning package proves, with signed freight documents, that the quantity you billed physically arrived at the named facility against the named PO. The required proof differs by how the freight moved.
For collect shipments, that means the carrier-signed BOL and master BOL listing PO numbers and case quantities per PO, with the trailer seal number included for full truckloads. For prepaid shipments, it means the carrier’s signed POD plus the receiving facility’s OS&D (Over, Short & Damaged) stamp; the stamp is obtained by the carrier at the dock, which is why the POD alone does not carry a prepaid dispute. For prepaid shipments into a Grocery DC, Walmart accepts the Delivery Confirmation Report if no OS&D stamp exists. For small-parcel prepaid, it means the carrier’s own POD showing the PO number, the complete delivery address, and a physical signature. Electronic signatures are not accepted, and the expectation runs one POD per parcel. Warehouse PODs should be signed in eaches, so the signed count reconciles to the invoiced count without a pack-conversion argument. A clean package is one where every document shows the same PO number and the quantities tie back to the disputed invoice line without the reviewer doing any math you haven’t already shown.
What does a code 22 dispute look like end to end?
It runs in four moves: find the claim in APIS, pull the signed freight documents for that PO, file in APDP under the quantity or receiving reason, and track it to approved or denied. Here is one, hypothetically but concretely.
In week one of the month, a mid-size grocery supplier notices a short payment on a check. APIS shows a claim: code 22, Goods Billed Not Shipped, tied to PO 7841-series, invoice 100482, in a dollar amount that works out to 40 cases of a single item. The supplier invoiced 5,760 eaches, which is 480 cases of twelve; Walmart’s receiving credited 440 cases’ worth. The shipment moved collect on a full truckload.
The supplier pulls the carrier-signed BOL and master BOL for that PO (both show 480 cases) plus the trailer seal number, and attaches the POD, signed in eaches for 5,760, as supporting evidence. The dispute narrative shows the arithmetic (480 cases of twelve is 5,760 eaches), so the counts tie to the disputed invoice line with nothing left for the reviewer to compute, and the PO number appears on every page. In APDP, the supplier flips the claim notification into a dispute, selects the quantity or receiving reason, writes two sentences stating that the signed BOL documents 480 cases received against this PO, and attaches the documents.
From here it resolves one of two ways. If it is approved, a credit posts in a later payment cycle. Approval can be partial, and if the credit has not posted on the timeline APDP gives, APDP has a separate route for approved-but-unpaid disputes, distinct from a new filing. If it is denied, read the denial reason, gather what it says is missing, and use the rebuttal path; once you’ve used up your resubmissions on that invoice number, the only lane left is a support ticket, not a new dispute. If the denial holds, the freight was prepaid, and the loss genuinely happened in transit, the remaining claim belongs with the carrier, not Walmart.
Why do code 22 disputes lose?
They lose at four gates Walmart controls: a dispute window measured from a check date, a reason-code menu where the wrong choice can draw an automatic denial, an evidence standard that differs by freight mode and is spelled out in Walmart’s APDP guidance rather than on the claim itself, and a hard cap on resubmissions per invoice number; some deductions are also simply owed. Each gate is Walmart’s rule, and each is knowable before submission.
Dispute windows exist, they are measured from dates you can look up (the check date of the original deduction is the anchor for the outer bound), and they can change. The current values are the ones in the APDP FAQs inside Retail Link, and they can change; read the window from that page before you file rather than carrying a number over from an older filing. APDP also enforces a hard cap on how many times the same invoice number can be disputed, so every submission on an invoice draws down a fixed allowance Walmart set. And a code 22 that reflects a real short-ship (an item that never left the dock) is owed; that deduction stands, and a dispute on it draws down the same capped submissions. On the prevention side, the timing gap is Walmart’s: an invoice matched before receiving closes reads as over-billing. Invoicing to receipt rather than to ship (the MABD date is one common anchor) closes that gap, and the early-invoice cause of code 22 goes away with it.
What about the next code on the check?
A check that carries a code 22 can carry a 25, a 24, or an allowance-family deduction beside it, each with its own meaning, evidence package, and filing route. Retail Reason answers “what does this code mean, and what do I pull” for the deduction in front of you. Every answer carries the date it was last verified and a confidence class, so you know which facts are firm and which to re-check in the portal. It answers questions and checks plans; it does not file disputes or touch your account. See pricing, or contact Matt.