Courier Business Stuff

If the charges relate only to the goods that he has in his possession then he doesn’t need anything in his terms and conditions to allow him to retain them, he’s not allowed to sell them though.

Proper T&Cs should establish a general lien (rather than the special lien described above) and the right to dispose of or sell the goods. The customer doesn’t necessarily need to have signed (or even read) the T&Cs for them to apply – it’s enough to be able to show that the customer should have been aware that the T&Cs existed and that they were available to examine.

Personally I’d keep hold of the stuff, continue charging her for storage at the agreed rate and tell her you’ll sue for the full amount plus a late payment charge and the court costs. She’ll soon decide that she’s got the money.

Posted under Courier Financial Issues, Late Payment

Microsoft Office Accounting Express

I’ve not used but I’ve had a good look at it and it seems to cover the basics quite nicely.

Posted under Accounting Systems, Courier Financial Issues

You can do a chargeback if he doesn’t perform according to contract.

What’s more common though – jobs being done to such a low standard that you could legitimately withhold payment or people paying late?

I reckon that half the people posting jobs on here today will be out of business by this time next year, so Dave’s probably got the right idea.
 

Posted under Courier Financial Issues, Late Payment

A director’s guarantee is certainly legally binding under most circumstances and can be made as simply as you suggest, or you could buy a standard director’s guarantee letter online for a few quid. I’d suggest though that most company director’s would hesitate to provide such a guarantee unless you were providing a service that they couldn’t obtain in any other way.
 

Posted under Courier Financial Issues

Well they wouldn’t be QUITE 17.5% better off, but you’re 100% correct that everyone in this business should be VAT registered – it’s just doesn’t make sense not to be.

If anyone’s worried about the paperwork (and they shouldn’t be) then at least register on the Flat Rate Scheme; it shouldn’t take you more than half an hour a month to do the admin and you’ll add over 6.9% of your turnover straight on to your bottom line.
 

Posted under Courier Financial Issues, VAT

Unless it’s particularly allowed for in your terms and conditions you can only exercise a lien over goods that are actually connected with the outstanding debt. So if you were owed money for storage you could hold the goods that you were storing against payment of the storage fees. You can’t exercise a lien over goods that you collect today as security for a debt that’s outstanding from last month.

Having said that, it would be a civil matter anyway and the only recourse the customer would have would be to sue you for any losses incurred by your wrongful detention of their goods.
 

Posted under Courier Financial Issues, Late Payment, Legal Issues

You’re not the only person to say good things about Skipton Andy and I’ve never had a problem with them when our suppliers have used them either. 3% is slightly on the high side, although not really excessive, charges tend to vary depending on your turnover, number of invoices and average invoice amount.

The 3% is only the service charge element of the fees (and don’t forget that’s payable on the whole invoice amount, including VAT), there’s also the interest on the actual funds advanced which could be anything between 2% & 6% over base rate. There are often other costs involved as well, so it pays to check out the small print properly.

Mick, the problem that your guy might have is that most factoring companies aren’t keen to lend when a large proportion of the sales ledger debt is owed by a single ‘prime debtor’. They tend to restrict the amount that they will lend based on invoices to any one debtor; either on the basis of a percentage of the total debt or a fixed ceiling for each debtor. So if you’re owed £90,000 by Megabucks Corp and a total of £10,000 by 20 other customers they might only fund 85% of the first £20,000 for Megabucks and 85% of the £10,000 – meaning that they’ll only advance you a total of £25,500 against your £100,000 sales ledger. I believe there are a few smaller factoring companies that don’t impose these restrictions, but, as with other companies offering loans that aren’t attractive to mainstream lenders, you need to be very careful about what you’re getting in to.
 

Posted under Courier Financial Issues

If no terms are agreed beforehand then the invoice is payable on demand – whatever terms the supplier wants. Interest and late payment charges can be applied after 30 days even if no terms agreed. 30 days net means 30 days from invoice date. You can claim the late payment charge up to six years after the invoice was due even if they pay just a few days after the 30 days.
 

Posted under Courier Basics, Courier Financial Issues, Late Payment