Ditching Royal Mail

Jon_1984

Hi Everyone

I work as the Finance Controller of an SME sized wholesaler. I am thinking of contacting our entire supply chain (stock suppliers/utility providers/landlord etc. etc.) and stating an intention to not accept documentation such as invoices/credits/statements etc. via post from January.

I would instead offer them the options of email/fax or documents with deliverys.

I would also be intending to only submit payments electronically/via DD.

This is something I have been mulling over for a while in an attempt to speed up document flows (some invoices are arriving 30 days after they are dated) and the recent strikes have just added to my conviction that it would be the correct way to go.

Has anyone else tried this and have they got any comments on how it went/who it went badly with?

JodieR

I personally think you'll create a far bigger monster by insisting that no-one used the post any more. I can only think of a few companies that even offer the choice of sending an invoice by email, so many companies that my clients deal with still print their invoices on dot-matrix printers so I doubt they have the faclility to email them.
I think the best you can do at the moment is to let your supply chain know that you would prefer to receive information electronically and even possibly reward those who do (eg by settling invoices sooner) but I think that making life hard for those who choose to continue to correspond through the mail could be breaking terms and conditions originally agreed to and will probably result in the loss of customers/suppliers.

maybe in a few years time...

Amanda Sanderson

Hi - depending on the size of your company, EDI documents are the way to go if you are a large corporate company as long as you have the relevent systems to cope with it. SAP is the system we use.
As for DD payments, we only send out remitance advices when the customer asks for one, payment is received in suppliers accounts 3 days after authorisation which our suppliers think is great, and we do 1 BACS run a week which picks up all the invoices due for payment before that date. And you no longer have the hassel of dealing with unpresented cheques, we occassional get a BACS reject and that due to the supplier qouting the wrong bank detail. this cuts down on paper and postage. You need to find yourself a bank that offers you an online service eg. HBSC offers bankline, so you can raise urgent same day payments if needs be.

Amanda Sanderson

You may need to check with HMRC to check that they are happy that you receive electronic document invoices, I can recall working with another organisation and they had to get a sepcial dispensation. It had something to do with the retention of documents policy

NeilH

Jon_1984 wrote: »

I work as the Finance Controller of an SME sized wholesaler. I am thinking of contacting our entire supply chain (stock suppliers/utility providers/landlord etc. etc.) and stating an intention to not accept documentation such as invoices/credits/statements etc. via post from January.

Acceptance of this could depend on the individual suppliers etc. Smaller companies may not have the facilites or time to make an exception for you and the larger ones might take the attitude of their way or no way!

I suspect the best thing with larger supplier (such as untilties) may be on-line accounts. I prefer a "mutual" respect with business customers and suppliers alike, so it might be worth adressing any issues in their own right rather than a blanket approach which could offend some suppliers, expecially as a two month notice might be a bit short for some. On the issue of invoices arriving late, paying them just as late once or twice might get the message home!

Neil