Courier Business Stuff

Following on from my recent post What Details Need to Appear on a VAT Invoice for Courier Services in the UK?  I thought it might be useful to supply an editable invoice template to illustrate exactly what’s needed and to maybe provide a starting point for to enable same day couriers to design their own invoices which meet all the legal and business requirements.

Download the template here (MS Excel template file) or view it as a Read More…

Posted under Accounting Systems, Courier Basics, Courier Business, VAT

There are strict, but thankfully very simple, rules for what needs to appear on a VAT invoice in the UK.

To satisfy HMRC you need to include on your invoice:

The date of issue of the invoice.
A sequential number that uniquely identifies the invoice.
Your business’s name, address and VAT registration number.
The name and address of your customer.
Your customer’s VAT registration number (only if they’re VAT registered in another EU country and you’re invoicing without VAT).
The date of supply of services (the date you did the work).
A description of the services supplied (from a VAT point of view ‘Courier work’ would be OK – your customer may want more detail).
The VAT rate applied (normally 17.5%).
Total amount of VAT payable.
The total amount payable for the whole invoice excluding VAT.
The total amount of VAT charged at each VAT rate (normally just one entry for the 17.5% rate).
The unit price of the services supplied and the number of units charged for – if this is normal practice for your industry (as far as I’m aware it isn’t normal practice in the courier industry) or required by your customer. In practice you can ignore this unless you charge your customer by an agreed price per mile or hour worked AND they’ve asked you to include the figure on your invoice. For example ‘200 miles @ 70p/plm’.

To satisfy Companies House and Trading Standards:

If your business trades under a name other that its actual Read More…

Posted under Accounting Systems, Courier Basics, Courier Business, Courier Financial Issues, Late Payment, VAT

21 year old DHL van driver Graham Foster was recently convicted of endagering the safety of train passengers following a collision with a train on an unmanned level crossing.

Most newspaper reports have picked up on the driver blindly following his satnav’s instructions and ignoring warning signs but other reports make the situation clearer.

“The DHL delivery driver had started work at 7.30am that morning. It had been a long day for him and he had only made 85 drops out of 120 he had to complete by the time of the accident.

“It was a strange area to him and he was under a great deal of pressure to get the delivery out first and foremost.

“This is a 21-year-old man who was under significant pressure from his employers.

“He was panicked and fairly stressed and at the time of the accident still had 35 packages to deliver.”

The accident happened at 1735 – the driver had already been working for over 10 hours and had done 85 drops out 120 in a rural area of Northumberland that he was unfamiliar with. His satnav Read More…

Posted under Drivers' Hours, SatNav

A week or so ago I read the PC Pro review of the new TomTom GO 930 satnav with IQ Routes™ technology (is there a TomTom equivalent of the annoying Intel sound that has to be played every time that phrase is read out?). If satnavs are your thing then it looks an impressive piece of kit.

One particular paragraph of the review stopped me in my tracks and made me think about the general problems people have had with satnavs since their introduction – namely satnavs sending drivers down unsuitable roads:

According to PC Pro, “The most significant upgrade to the new range is TomTom’s new route-finding ability – dubbed IQ Routes. What this means is that the 930T, along with the rest of the new “x30” range, calculates routes not using the speed limit data alone, but also by taking into account the average speed of real-world traffic on those roads.”

Just pause for a moment to let that sink in – not the fact that IQ Routes™ (cue the jingle again) calculates routes based on the average time taken to travel those routes but that TomToms in the past have calculated the fastest route based on the speed limit of the road.

Even my first copy of Autoroute had options to set different driving speeds for different types of roads – rural A roads, urban B roads, urban motorways etc. It beggars belief that up to now TomTom have been basing their route calculations on speed limits.

Think about it – is it generally possible to make better time on an Read More…

Posted under Courier Basics, SatNav

The recent rise in popularity of the use of satnavs by same day couriers may actually be slowing down deliveries and causing couriers to drive more miles than necessary, if the results a recent experiment conducted by Reader’s Digest magazine is to be believed.

According to a report in The Scotsman, the navigational experiment took the form of a ‘race’ over a 989 mile route between three teams of drivers.

The race was won by a team of men relying on reading road signs and asking directions. In second place was a team of women relying on their map-reading skills and the car relying on satnav finished over an hour and a half later.

So apparently men can ask for directions, women can read maps and satnavs don’t always find the most appropriate routes.

The report goes on to quote Luke Bosdet from the AA: “Unfortunately, many drivers become slaves to their satnavs – turning sharp right on to railway lines, rivers and, in one instance, a toilet on a German building site.”

Sarah Sands from the organisers of the experiment, Reader’s Digest, is quoted as saying “It goes to show that when you’re trying to find remote locations in the Lake District or navigate busy city centres, you’re better off relying on the people who live there, rather than a line on a piece of paper or a computer.”

I’d suggest that the outcome of this experiment Read More…

Posted under Courier Basics, SatNav

I don’t see how you can complain that they all look similar. If everyone was to stop using ‘Network’ invoices and starts using Quickbooks you’d have the same situation.

Agreed that it’s a total ballache having the same company issuing two different invoices, pure stupidity really. If they’re going to send their own invoice then why raise the ‘Network’ invoice to start with? It’s easy to avoid the double payment problem though – just match the invoice against jour job reference or purchase order when the invoice comes in. You can only pay for each jon once, so the second invoice goes in the shredder.

I’m not sure what the “not technically legal” refers to, apart from the absence of correct business names on some of them. That’s just as common with companies’ own invoices though.
 

Posted under Accounting Systems, Courier and Freight Exchanges, Courier Basics, Courier Financial Issues

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

lynyrd wrote:

Admin wrote:
I was having a yap with MTvan a couple weeks ago, and I believe they have something in the pipeline which will be free to their members…

I can get some more details if you want them…

if its stand alone software that cool

if its within mtvan no-one will use it

No-one in their right mind that is……

….some will.

From Tim’s keyboard:

Quote:
It’s similar to a lot of “courier software” packages, in that you can book a job, add a courier, add extras like waiting time etc, review the jobs before running pay and invoicing, print invoices, produce a list of invoices, and mark them paid.

The only difference is that it’s all on-line.

I think I’ll give that one a miss then.

Posted under Accounting Systems, Booking Software, Courier and Freight Exchanges