Plain English: free portal, no fees, paid on the terms you set with the retailer, all your ShelfSpace retailers in one login.
| Today | With ShelfSpace |
|---|---|
| You invoice the retailer; you call AP if it's late | Same invoice — paid through us on the terms you set, or Metrc-driven weekly settlement if you ship on consignment |
| Wait past terms when the retailer's behind | Paid on time per your terms — COD or net for wholesale, weekly settlement for consignment |
| Email asking "where's my check?" | Log in, download your check yourself the day it's cut |
| Credit memo conversations happen over phone or email | Credit memos sent through the portal — you approve or dispute in one click |
| Sales data: whatever the retailer chooses to share | Real-time sell-through visibility on your products at every ShelfSpace retailer |
| Multiple retailers = multiple AP contacts and systems | One login covers every ShelfSpace retailer you work with |
Every vendor working with a ShelfSpace retailer gets free access to the portal. One login, every retailer. Download checks the day they're cut, see real-time sell-through across your customers, approve or dispute credit memos without phone tag, and ask ShelfiQ about anything in plain English.
Seeing every dollar you're owed and receiving payments is free forever. Automate adds the tools that do the work — verification, collections, payments, and QuickBooks.
| Capability | VisibilityFree forever | Automate30-day free trial |
|---|---|---|
| See money you're owedCredits owed, overdue AR, settlement amounts | ||
| Receive paymentsView & download checks and settlement reports | ||
| Data ingestionUploads and Metrc sync | ||
| Get verifiedKYC — the infrastructure that gates money movement | ||
| DisputesFile and track a dispute — a right, never gated | ||
| ShelfiQ Q&AAsk about your own data — what you owe, where's your check | 25 / mo | Unlimited |
| Invoice ↔ Metrc verificationEvery line matched against Metrc and your PO | — | |
| Short-pay & adjust payableReduce a payable when the delivery doesn't match | — | |
| Cut checks & ACH originationPay vendors by digital check or bank transfer | — | |
| Credit-recovery engineGenerate, send, and collect monthly vendor credit memos | — | |
| Proactive AP & AR botsShelfiQ sends the dunning and follow-up for you | — | |
| QuickBooks syncSettlements and payments flow into QuickBooks | — | |
| Advanced analyticsSlots, demand planning, deep reporting | — | |
| Promotions & price dropsCreate and manage markdowns and vendor promotions | — |
ACH is included in every Automate plan; mailed checks are $5 each. Start on Automate free for 30 days — cancel anytime before it renews.
The portal is free, and you're never charged to be paid by a retailer who's already on ShelfSpace — they pay us, not you. To go collect on invoices a retailer hasn't paid, ShelfSpace's collections tools (standing pay links, dunning, partial payments, 0% installment plans, ACH collect) are part of Automate — a flat monthly subscription from $499/mo, on a 30-day free trial that auto-renews to your monthly rate; cancel anytime before it renews.
Only if you want it. Check 21 is the default and never asks for your bank account — you download a check from this portal and deposit it like any other, and there's nothing stored for anyone to steal. If you'd rather be paid by ACH, that's optional: you link a bank yourself, and even then ShelfSpace doesn't keep your full account number on file. If you want the longer version, here's our honest answer to whether ShelfSpace is safe for vendors.
You'll fill out a W-9 once, right inside the onboarding invite — your EIN and tax classification, in the same step where you set up your portal. There's no blank form to chase down and no faxing it around every quarter. Your EIN is encrypted and shown masked, and you're notified any time the retailer reveals your W-9. You can also view your retailer's own W-9 and resale certificate from the portal.
On the terms you've already agreed to with the retailer. Wholesale invoices pay COD or on net terms (Net 7, Net 30, etc.) — once the invoice is approved and at its due date, the check is cut and you download it from the portal. If you ship on consignment, settlement runs weekly from POS data and your check is ready that cycle. Your terms don't change — we just stop being the reason you're waiting.
Ask ShelfiQ and you get an answer back from the same Metrc data and delivery records the retailer sees — usually in under a minute, without you chasing anyone. Anything that needs a human decision routes straight to the retailer's AP person with the full thread attached, so you're not stuck in a portal ticket queue waiting on someone to respond.
It's a Check 21–compliant Substitute Check, legally valid under federal law. You can deposit it by mobile phone, print it and walk it into the bank, or process it through remote deposit capture. Your bank doesn't treat it differently from a paper check from the retailer.
It means the retailer paid you outside ShelfSpace — using their own check, an ACH from their bank, or cash — instead of having the platform cut a Check 21. The settlement is resolved on the platform's side and the math is exactly what it would have been if they'd used the Check 21 path. You're not owed anything different. The stamp just confirms the payment was made off-platform. If you haven't received the corresponding payment from the retailer through whichever method they used, reach out to them directly with the settlement reference.
Your relationship with the retailer is unchanged. You'd go back to invoicing them directly, the way you did before. Nothing about your business depends on us continuing to exist — we don't hold your money, we don't hold your data, we don't lock you in.
Your product, your inventory, until it sells. When you ship on consignment, the product lives on the retailer's shelf but stays your property. The retailer's POS sees the unit ring at the register, and that's the trigger that creates the obligation to pay you. No invoice required up front. No COD. No Net 30 from a purchase order that may or may not exist.
Settlement runs weekly from POS data. Every cycle, the platform pulls the week's POS data and calculates what's owed to you on each unit per your wholesale terms with the retailer. You see the calculation line by line in the portal. Your check is ready that cycle. No invoicing, no chase, no reconciliation calls.
Unsold product comes back, no questions. If a SKU isn't moving, you can pull it. No write-off, no awkward "we need to return this" conversation. Your product, your decision.
Chris ran a vertically integrated cannabis company for nearly a decade — production and retail. He's been the vendor waiting months on a check, and he's been the retailer trying to verify what got delivered. ShelfSpace exists because both sides deserve better. We're cannabis-specific, Metrc-certified, and bank-grade secure.