Discount leakage: finding it in a Georgian wholesale ledger

Discount leakage is rarely a villain in a cape. In the ledgers we see, it is a restaurant still billed on a spring grant, a key account whose header terms were never moved back to list, or a van customer who receives the same off-invoice percentage that was meant for a single slow month.

Why the total stays quiet

Net sales can hold while the leak grows. A strong grocery month covers a HORECA page that would alarm the owners if it were shown alone. The monthly close that a finance team signs off is not designed to name six Tbilisi accounts. That is not a failing of the close. It is a reason to cut the file differently.

Where we look first

If the extract carries a discount field on the line, we start there. We sort by customer and by channel, and we look for grants that do not move for months. A discount that is identical to the last decimal every invoice is often a header term, not a negotiation.

If the discount sits only in a header, the line export may look clean. Then we need the header table, or a note from the sales office listing who is not on list. Without one of those, we can still draw net by account; we cannot claim we have found leakage.

Georgia-specific patterns we see

Importers who sell both to modern trade and to restaurants often grant HORECA terms during a quiet April and forget them in October. Regional wholesale sometimes inherits a Tbilisi key-account percentage because the same customer code is used for a shop and a warehouse. Construction-material wholesalers leak on project quotes that were meant for one site and then applied to every subsequent load.

None of these need a new theory of commerce. They need the grant date on the exception list.

What we will not do with the finding

We will not telephone the restaurant. We will not write the new price list. The commercial director takes the page into the account visit. Our job is to make the leak visible enough that the visit has a number, a date, and a comparison with list.