Courier Business Stuff

Geoff, the company are still trading I believe? The threat of the Winding-Up Order forces them to pay all creditors who can present proof of their debt to the Court by the hearing date. If the debtor settles with all creditors that have joined the proceedings they can avoid the Winding-Up Order.

Most directors that are involved with shonky business practices would want to avoid compulsory liquidation at all costs – since if they’re found to be culpable they can be held personally liable for any debts. And even if they’re blameless they’ll have to pay back all those Dividends or Directors’ Loans that they’ve no doubt been taking instead of salary.

The last thing anyone wants is for the Winding-Up Order to be granted, but it’s a nice Big Stick to wave at people who CAN pay but WON’T pay.

As for not getting anything back, it’s not nearly as likely as it used to be. Any assets in a liquidated company used to be immediately swallowed up by the debts owed to the IR & HMCE, but nowadays HMRC are in the queue with everyone else.

Posted under Late Payment, Legal Issues

I’ve not looked at NetDespatch for a year or two now, but I don’t think it’s really suitable for use as a replacement for courier management software is it? It’s more of a web-booking front end that connects with your courier software, which can then connect with your accounts package.

I think you can export the bookings from ND to Excel easily enough and with a bit of knowhow you can export from Excel into Sage – but why bother? If it saves you an hour a week your £500 is recouped within a year.

Alternatively have a look at www.databasebusinesssystems.com I understand that their software can link with both NetDespatch and Sage and provide you with a ‘proper’ booking and management system. I don’t think much of it myself but others do.
 

Posted under Accounting Systems, Booking Software, IT & Technology

You’ve removed Lawrence’s message about the problem he’s having sending booking confirmations through ‘Network’. He was asking whether anybody else was having the problem in order that he could ascertain whether the problem was with his PC or with the ‘Network’ system. He didn’t criticise ‘Network’ in any way.

The only reason I can think that you would remove a thread like that is out of some sort of embarrassment that you’re unable to provide the service that we’re paying for.

Rather than waste our time typing out confirmations 2 or 3 times and then waste more of our time, and your time, telephoning you to report the problem, would it not have been more helpful to respond to Lawrence’s question and to leave the thread there for other members to see?

We don’t expect you to be infallible but it would be nice if you could be more open about problems that are occurring with your systems. How about a Status page listing current issues that you’re aware of and informing us when the issue’s been resolved? Or how about the Support Forum that was discussed some months ago?

While we’re at it how about some feedback on the resolution of the ‘Deliver’ time bug in GTM which changes the time from 12:00 to 12:12, 17:45 to 17:17 etc. And what about the fault in GTM confirmations that causes the company name at the delivery point to be missed out from faxed and emailed confirmations? You’ve been aware of both of these serious problems for at least 6 months, yet you’ve pressed on with other developments without resolving these faults in the current system.

Posted under Courier and Freight Exchanges

As soon as you’ve ‘created’ an original work you (or your employer or client depending on the situation) automatically own the copyright to it. All you need to be able to do is proove that your creation of the work pre-dates any later copy. You don’t need to go through any administrative process, nor do you need to add a copyright notice to your work.

Terms & Conditions, like anything else, are subject to copyright law. Anyone can adopt (for example) the RHA’s conditions – there’s no way they can stop you after all – but if they publish them (print them on the back of their invoices for example) or plagiarize them to the extent that the plagiarism is identifiable then they’ve breached the copyright.

Breach of copright is a civil Matter, so the only recourse is to sue the person/company that’s done the copying. I believe that once the copyright owner has informed the user of the copyright material that they’re breaching their copyright it becomes a CRIMINAL offence if they continue to do so.

Posted under Legal Issues

Anna’s just shown me this thread. PMSL.

Dave when have I EVER given you a job without moaning about the price? £20 extra my arse.

Peter, some of my most common phrases are “I’m just getting prices at the moment” or “I will get back to you in a couple of minutes” or “I’ve already had a quote much better than that” or “I’ll get on to my customer and see if he goes for it”. My favourite is “If I wanted to pay that sort of money I’d give the job to TNT”.

I don’t want anyone getting the (wrong) impression that the sun shines out of my arse or that we’re happy paying top rate prices. I’m a cantankerous old b@$&*%d and I like getting value for money.

Posted under Courier and Freight Exchanges, Uncategorized

Quite agree with you Ray – go in fast and hard on every occasion. If everyone did it there’d be no late payers because it would cost more to pay late than to pay on time.

One thing though: 30 days net DOES NOT mean “30 days from end of month of invoice”, no matter how many people try and convince you that it does. 30 days net means “we expect to receive payment within 30 days of the invoice date”. The financial penalty can be immediate if your customer fails to pay by the due date.

Posted under Courier Financial Issues, Late Payment

T-mobile Flext plans are fantastic value at the moment, even better value if you need data as well as text & voice. Coverage and reliability seems better than it was. Vodafone are meant to be launching some new, better value, plans in the next couple of weeks.

Posted under Mobile Phones, Telecoms

This relates to the first (and only) job we subcontracted to that annoying ‘Network’ member thet phones up for every job within a 30 mile radius of where their alleged single vehicle is based promising 30 minute collections. They turned up 45 minutes late (without pre-advising us) for a 10am collection booked with them the day before. Invoiced us full rate despite agreeing a £10 reduction because the job was COA. It took 2 phone calls to extract their bank details from them DESPITE the original order containing “PLEASE SEND YOUR BANK DETAILS WITH YOUR INVOICE TO ENSURE QUICK PAYMENT!!!” in block capitals. Now I’ve had 2 calls from them chasing the payment that was made 2 days after their invoice was received even though we’ve sent them a Payment Advice.
Muppets.

Posted under Courier Basics