Track every claim, or forfeit the money. Here's the spreadsheet.
Marketplace claims do not get rejected as often as they get forgotten — windows expire, re-appeals slip, and nobody knows the recovery rate. This guide gives you the exact claim-log columns, the weekly claim hour that keeps the pipeline moving, what ninety days of logged claims reveal about your business, and the honest point where the spreadsheet stops scaling.
- Untracked claims die three ways: the filing window expires before you file, rejected claims never get re-appealed, and small deductions are never noticed at all. A ten-column spreadsheet fixes all three for zero rupees.
- The routine is one weekly claim hour: file new claims, chase pending ones, re-appeal solid rejections, log outcomes. Sort by the window-deadline column first — the deadline is the whole game.
- After ninety days the log becomes strategy: fraud-prone SKUs, problem courier lanes, and your real recovery rate. When filing itself becomes the bottleneck, that is the signal to automate the pipeline, not to work longer nights.
Nobody rejects most of your claims. The calendar does.
Every claim you are entitled to file — empty-box return, item swap, weight discrepancy, short settlement — comes with a clock attached. The window opens when the return lands or the deduction posts, and it closes whether or not you noticed. The panel will not chase you. On a busy dispatch day, a bad return gets photographed, set aside “for later”, and later never comes; by the time the pile is revisited, half the windows are shut. Sellers commonly report that expired windows — not rejections — are where most recoverable money is lost.
The second silent killer is the missed re-appeal. First decisions go against sellers regularly, sometimes on evidence technicalities that a re-appeal with the same packet would fix — but if no list says “rejected on the 14th, re-appeal by the 21st”, the rejection quietly becomes final. And the third is invisibility: with no log, you cannot answer the only question that matters — how much did returns and deductions cost this quarter, and how much did we get back? A spreadsheet turns all three from luck into process.
The claim log, column by column
One row per claim, ten fields per row. Set it up once in Sheets or Excel — the discipline is in filling it the day the return or deduction lands, not in the tool.
- 01
Date received + order / sub-order ID
The day the return landed on your bench or the deduction appeared in settlement — this is day zero for the window. The order and sub-order IDs tie the row to the panel record; on Meesho the sub-order ID is what support and claim forms actually ask for, so capture both.
- 02
AWB + claim type
The AWB links the claim to the physical journey — reverse pickup, hub scans, delivery attempt history. Claim type comes from a fixed list you define once: empty box, item swap, used return, part-return, weight dispute, short payment, RTO damage. Fixed categories are what make the 90-day pattern view possible.
- 03
Evidence links
Links to the unboxing video, photos, weight logs and invoices for this claim — stored in a cloud folder named by order ID, never on one phone. A claim without evidence attached is a complaint; this column is what turns receiving-bench discipline into recoverable rupees.
- 04
Filed date + window deadline
The date you actually submitted, and the last date the marketplace will accept it. Look the current window up on your panel per claim type — they vary and they change. The deadline column is the one you sort by every week; everything else in the log exists to serve it.
- 05
Status
A short fixed list: to file, filed, pending review, more info requested, rejected, re-appealed, won, lost, expired. The dangerous statuses are 'pending' past the stated review time and 'rejected' inside its re-appeal window — the weekly hour exists mostly to hunt these two.
- 06
Outcome + recovered ₹
What finally happened, and exactly how much came back — verified against the settlement sheet, not the approval message. Approved amounts sometimes differ from credited amounts; the log should record what actually hit the payout, because that is the number your recovery rate is built on.
- 07
Notes + pattern tags
Ticket numbers from escalations, courier lane, pin code, SKU. These tags cost seconds per row and pay off at the quarter mark: filter by SKU to find fraud magnets, by lane to find tampering clusters, by claim type to see what is actually worth filing. This column is where the log becomes strategy.
One claim hour a week — and what ninety days of it buys you
The log only works with a fixed ritual behind it. Block one hour, same day every week, and run four passes in order: file every new claim from the week's returns and deductions; chase everything pending past the stated review time; re-appeal rejections where the evidence is genuinely solid; and log outcomes with the recovered amount verified against the settlement sheet. Sort by the deadline column before you start, so the claim expiring on Thursday gets filed before the comfortable one due next month. On a 20-orders-a-day store this hour routinely touches four figures of recoverable value a month (illustrative — your mix will differ).
Then the compounding starts. After ninety days the log answers questions the panel never will: which SKUs eat the most fraud returns and might deserve tamper tags or delisting, which courier lanes produce tampering clusters worth an escalation with dates and AWBs attached, which claim types actually pay and which waste your hour — and your true recovery rate, the single number that tells you whether the operation is improving. That is negotiation data, delisting data and prevention-budget data, built one row at a time.
The spreadsheet stops scaling. Robnu is what replaces it.
Somewhere past a few dozen active claims, the weekly hour becomes two, then three — evidence gathering, form filling, status checking and re-appeal chasing are all still manual, and the log can only watch. That is the point where sellers start dropping small claims, and small claims are exactly where the silent tax lives. This layer — the pipeline behind the spreadsheet — is exactly what Robnu automates for AJIO and Meesho sellers: returns and settlement lines are scanned as they land, matched to their original orders, and claims are filed with the evidence already attached, inside the window, without a calendar reminder in sight.
Fully autonomous filing is rolling out now — the rare claim still asks you for one approval click before it goes. Statuses, outcomes and recovered rupees track themselves, so the ninety-day pattern view this guide promised is simply there: fraud-prone SKUs, problem lanes, real recovery rate. You keep the weekly hour — for reading the numbers, not typing them.
Claim tracking, answered
Because claims die of neglect, not rejection. Every marketplace claim has a filing window, a review period and often a re-appeal step — and none of those are visible in one place on the panel. Without a log, windows expire before you file, rejected claims never get re-appealed, and you have no idea what your recovery rate is. A spreadsheet costs nothing and turns claims from things you occasionally remember into a pipeline you work weekly. Sellers commonly report that the simple act of logging recovers money they would otherwise have written off silently.
Ten cover almost everything: date the return or deduction was received, order ID and sub-order ID, AWB, claim type (empty box, item swap, used return, weight dispute, short payment, and so on), links to your evidence, the date you filed, the filing-window deadline, current status, final outcome, and recovered rupees. The deadline column is the one that saves you money — sort by it every week and file whatever is closest to expiring first. Add a notes column for panel ticket numbers if you escalate often.
Once a week, as a fixed ritual — a single claim hour beats scattered daily glances. In that hour: file every new claim from the week's returns and deductions, chase everything sitting in pending past the marketplace's stated review time, re-appeal rejections where your evidence is solid, and log outcomes with recovered amounts. Weekly is frequent enough to stay inside most filing windows, but check the current windows on your panel — if any claim type has a very short window, that type needs same-day filing, not the weekly batch.
They vary — by marketplace, by claim type, and over time. Some windows are measured in days from return delivery, others from the settlement line appearing; re-appeal windows are often shorter than first-filing windows. This guide deliberately avoids quoting specific day counts because they change and getting one wrong costs real money. Treat the day a return lands or a deduction appears as day zero, look up the current window for that claim type on your seller panel, and write the actual deadline date into the log immediately.
When filing becomes the bottleneck instead of the log. Somewhere around a few dozen active claims — for many sellers that is the 15–25 orders-a-day stage with normal return rates — the weekly hour becomes two, then three: every claim still needs evidence gathered, forms filled, statuses checked and re-appeals chased by hand. The spreadsheet still tells you what is owed; it just cannot do any of the work. That is the point where sellers either start dropping small claims (paying a silent tax) or hand the pipeline to software.
Robnu is the claim log that files its own rows. For AJIO and Meesho sellers it scans returns and settlement lines as they land, matches each against the original order, attaches your evidence, and files claims inside the window — fully autonomous filing is rolling out now, and the rare claim still asks you for one approval click before it goes. Statuses, outcomes and recovered amounts are tracked automatically, so the 90-day pattern view — fraud-prone SKUs, problem lanes, true recovery rate — exists from day one without a spreadsheet night.
Where this comes from
- Marketplace claim and seller-protection documentation: Meesho supplier panel help centre and AJIO seller portal policy pages — filing windows and eligibility are quoted from the panels, not reproduced here, because they change.
- Recurring seller reports of expired claim windows, missed re-appeals and recovery-rate blind spots: public seller community threads (Reddit r/IndiaBusiness, seller Facebook and Telegram groups), 2024–2026.
Related guides & pages
Return fraud types
The seven patterns your claim-type column should list.
Wrong return on Meesho
The single claim, step by step — what each log row represents.
Shipping deductions audit
Finding the deductions that belong in your claim log.
Claims with Robnu
The automated pipeline that replaces the spreadsheet.