Courier Business Stuff

That’s not really a sound analogy though Simon – you’re not paying for the POD, you’re paying for the delivery.

I agree totally that the supplier should obtain a signed, printed, timed and dated POD from every delivery and provide it to you on request. However this isn’t absolute standard practice throughout the industry: there are many courier companies that don’t even have a space on their POD sheets for the date and time and there are many courier companies that allow their drivers to leave parcels without signature as a matter of course. Our own Conditions of Trading allow us to do so, although we wouldn’t without the customer’s agreement or if there was no other reasonable option.

For you and me it’s standard procedure and common sense that you obtain a full POD for every delivery but if you’re new to the business or you’ve worked in the past for companies that don’t insist on a full POD would you necessarily know that you were doing anything wrong? I’ve come across plenty of people on here that think they only have to get a POD if they’re presented with a delivery note at the collection point and don’t carry any blank PODs with them at all. Obviously they’re in the wrong, but if WE don’t spell out our requirements to them and make sure they’ve understood then we can hardly blame them for getting it wrong.

Legally you couldn’t withhold payment for non-production of a POD unless it was either agreed as a condition of the contract or the consignee was actually disputing delivery.

Wasn’t there some talk of a Code of Practice for ‘Network’ members so that things like this could be taken as understood without having to go into lengthy explanations as to what we all require from our suppliers?
 

Posted under Courier Basics, Late Payment

In that case you’re extremely lucky that there are so many naive ‘businessmen’ around on here willing to give credit facilities to a recently formed limited company with no credit status.
 

Posted under Courier Financial Issues, Late Payment

Yes Glen, and they should also assess the credit risk of each prospective customer, establish proper credit control procedures, have a professionally produced business plan and produce monthly management accounts which are discussed at meetings with their accountant on the first Friday of every month.

In the real world though the owner-driver spends 50+ hours a week behind the wheel of a van and what’s left over after paying his expenses barely provides a proper wage.

Chasing overdue invoices is annoying, time-consuming and costs money. Generally companies expect to pay lower rates to owner-drivers than to established companies simply because the O/D hasn’t got the overheads associated with running a back office; the reverse side of the coin is that O/Ds expect their lack of office-support and sources of funding to be taken account of by companies. Most companies play the game fairly – some don’t.

I assume at some stage you’ve used your own ‘in house’ owner-drivers, acting as pseudo-employees? Did you expect them to wait 90 days for payment? Do you or your employees wait 90 days to receive your salary?

The companies that habitually pay late are simply using their smaller suppliers as a source of free credit, while continuing to draw their own salaries and continuing to pay those suppliers that they can’t bully. It seems a bit odd for you to criticise O/Ds for not having resources behind them, while apparently supporting the companies that pay late for the same reason.
 

Posted under Late Payment

Tufty wrote:
Has anyone any information how I can take a European company to court for non payment? Have sent new invoices with late payment charges, now all communication is ignored.

I believe the correct procedure is to sue them in the English courts, obtain a European Enforcement Order (EEO) and then apply to the French courts to enforce the order.

I’ve never done this though and you’ll probably find that a solicitor specialising in debt collection is the best way to go. I understand that Direct Route will chase foreign debts.

Posted under Late Payment

Customer talking through their arse.

http://www.payontime.co.uk/

http://www.payontime.co.uk/downloads/late_payment_brochure.pdf

Posted under Late Payment

If terms weren’t agreed before the job was carried out then payment is due on demand, although there’s very little a supplier could do to force payment before 30 days.

After 30 days the supplier has the option of issuing a late payment charge of between £40 and £100. A week or so later the supplier has the option of issuing a claim against the customer – costing the customer a minimum of an extra £70 or so.

There’s also the option for the supplier to wait up to 6 years and then bill the customer for 6 years worth of accumulated late payment charges, one charge for each overdue invoice. 3 late invoices per week means an accumulated bill of £12,000 over a 6 year period.

Posted under Courier Financial Issues, Late Payment, Legal Issues

Apparently Direct Route are also telling some of their clients that they can’t charge the Late Payment charges unless they’ve informed their customers in advance. This is quite simply untrue.

It’s sensible though, for the avoidance of future problems, to add the standard notice to each invoice: ‘WE UNDERSTAND AND WILL EXERCISE OUR STATUTORY RIGHT TO INTEREST AND COMPENSATION FOR DEBT RECOVERY COSTS UNDER THE LATE PAYMENT LEGISLATION IF WE ARE NOT PAID ACCORDING TO OUR CREDIT TERMS’.
 

Posted under Late Payment

Aren’t all these credit checks just based on the latest published accounts of the company and whether they’ve got any CCJs against them. Do any of them look at more up to date information, for example the actual payment history recorded by factoring companies?
 

Posted under Courier Financial Issues, Late Payment