First, turn the notice into a testable claim
A letter may say “6% on selected lines” while an attached file contains a different mix of products and terms. Record the supplier, the notice date, the stated effective date, the affected product families, exclusions, and any new freight or surcharge rule. If the letter has no item-level file, ask for one before trying to approve thousands of rows from a headline percentage.
Keep the original notice and price file together. The letter explains intent; the file shows proposed values. Your current approved catalog is the baseline. The Excel comparison guide explains how to line up old and new rows without trusting their order.
Check the parts a flat percentage misses
- Scope. Separate changed, unchanged, new, and discontinued items. Confirm that every changed SKU belongs to the announced families and that exclusions stayed out.
- Cost basis. Compare list price and discount multiplier together. A stable list price can still produce a higher net cost when the multiplier changes.
- Pack and unit. Convert both sides to the same unit before judging the percentage. A box price is not directly comparable with an each price.
- Timing. Keep the supplier effective date separate from the day the file arrived and the day a reviewer approved it. Hold a missing or ambiguous date.
- Exceptions. List lines that disagree with the notice, fail an item match, or need a buyer to confirm a new specification. Do not hide them inside a file-level approval.
A multiplier change can be the real increase
In this fictional RowTune example, an elbow keeps a $9.20 list price while its multiplier moves from 0.42 to 0.46. Net cost changes from $3.864 to $4.232, about 9.5% higher before display rounding. A list-price-only check would call it unchanged. The decision needs the multiplier, the unit basis, and an approved item match, not just the letter's headline rate.
| Fictional check | Before | Proposed | Decision |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elbow net cost | $9.20 × 0.42 | $9.20 × 0.46 | Review the 9.5% increase |
Finish with a decision file
Give each proposed change an owner and a decision: approve, correct, or hold. Include the old and new values, normalized unit cost, effective date, and reason for any exception. Reconcile the approved row count against the exported file before your team imports it. The import checklist covers the final handoff and test import; the letter review ends when the proposed changes are understood and signed off.
RowTune can help match the supplier file against your catalog and export reviewed lines. It does not apply the letter's percentage automatically or write directly to an ERP. If the supplier supplied only a PDF notice, verify extracted rows against the source before approving them.