Following last week’s transportation update, we’re sharing a further update on the status of our systems and processes, including issues that we continue to work through following the recent launch and update of several systems. This transparency is important to us, as is your ongoing feedback.
- New and existing products: Due to some instances of missing data or data inconsistencies, it is taking longer than normal to add existing and new products to catalogues. As we continue to clean up data, we expect this process to be more seamless. If anyone has questions on impacts, including any planned promotional activity, please contact your category representative to explore options.
- Expanded product details: Additional product information for all newly approved product submissions is temporarily being collected via online form (separate from NISS). We recognize that collecting expanded product details from suppliers often requires multiple follow-ups from LCBO to validate and confirm accuracy, which may add to timelines. As a reminder, to help you prepare and gather the additional product information in advance of filling out the form, please refer to the reference guide.
- LCBO Gateway access: We’re pleased to share that everyone who requested LCBO Gateway access has now been granted access. There are a large number of requests to change the type of access – this can include access to see a particular vendor or a change from read to write access. We are working through these requests on an ongoing basis, and we thank you for your patience.
- Payments: Most of the individual issues on the finance side have largely been related to payment advices due to system configurations that we’ve resolved. We appreciate that inaccurate payment advices make it difficult to reconcile payments against POs and invoices. We continue to monitor advices to ensure accuracy and resolve issues as they arise.
- To support reconciliation efforts, we’ve outlined different approaches to access payment and PO information depending on when the order was placed.
- For orders placed April 1 onwards, all order details can be found in LCBO Gateway. When an invoice is queried, the PO number can be found under the PO number field, which can be used to query order details within Gateway. The exception to this is deliveries made directly from source to LCBO retail stores. Details of payment are available in LCBO Gateway but cannot be downloaded, which we recognize would help suppliers with large volumes of shipments. The process remains the same as our legacy systems where details of the receival can be found on an invoice level including LCBO store number, item number, case cost, and case quantity. Improvements are expected later this year.
- For orders prior to April 1, PO numbers for each payment can usually be found in the reference field. For direct deliveries from source to LCBO retail stores, the details for these orders are only available via Accounts Payable (accounts.payable@lcbo.com). Copies of chargeback invoices dated up to March 31 can also only be retrieved by Accounts Payable.
- If you need additional questions or need clarification after reviewing LCBO Gateway, you can contact accountspayable@lcbo.com.
- Reporting: Sale of Data reports until the end of P13 (FY25-26) will be shared by the end of this week. We continue to work to re-launch Narrowcast reports, which we will do as soon as we are absolutely certain that information is accurate.
- LCBO.com / wholesale.lcbo.com: We continue making progress to work through isolated incidents related to missing information or SKUs online. There are also instances of inaccurate inventory availability (online inventory indicating we have no product, when in fact we are well-stocked in-store). Some wholesale prices were showing inaccuracies, but we have since identified the root cause and refining our processes to prevent further issues. Within the wholesale catalogue, we appreciate that the product descriptions are in short form and are not pulling in the complete description. This is a data mapping issue, and we continue working on correcting it.
As always, we appreciate your understanding as we all adapt to new systems and processes. With a transition of this nature, it can take time to fix glitches and refine ways of working. Anything that impacts product ordering or delivery or payments will continue to be treated as top priority. Other items may take longer, and we remain committed to providing updates.
Thank you.