So My Job DOES Have SCs!!

[Kisa]

Not particularly annoying and not something i deal with directly but sucky none the less. At my new job, I am a biller. My job is basically taking scans of bills and entering the data into the computer system. Sometimes, I get a nice, clear scan where all the data is clearly marked. Other times, I get a handwritten scan, a scan with missing pieces, an over/underexposed scan or even a driver image (basically, a picture taken by the truck driver and sent to my computer). One company we deal with caller Wheater(not the real name) has a BIG account with us. Literally, about 40% of the bills I did today were Wheater bills.

Because I'm still new, all my bills must be checked before I save them to the system. On one Wheater bill, the bill ID number was 12-30004567-89. I accidentally missed a zero and typed 12-3004567-89. My mentor caught the typo and warned me to be extra careful with Wheater bills in the future. Why? Apparently, if the ID number is off by even one digit or if we use a number other than the ID number (if we cant find the ID number, there is a list if other numbers we can use in place of it) Wheater won't pay us!!! You ordered your stuff, we picked it up, loaded it into out trucks, drove across the freaking country to you and you wont pay for it because someone forgot a number or a dash? Oooookayyyyy then

[BeenThereDoneThat]

Wow...who the hell approved a policy like THAT?? (rhetorical question!) I hope you don't run into that kind of stuff too often, Kisa...at least it sounds a little bit less personal for you than all that Taco Hell stuff

[Canarr]

From Wheater's position, that policy makes perfect sense. Although they won't get out of paying the bills entirely - and probably aren't even trying - it will buy them time.

My guess would be they open some form of claim on bills that have the wrong ID and don't pay until that claim has been resolved. On the surface, it protects them from mistakes made in billing; but of course, it also gives them an additional reprieve in paying their bills. And every extra day you can avoid paying a bill is another day that you get to keep your cash, letting it earn interest for you. That might not be much for you and me, but for a big company paying millions of dollars in bills, that can add up quickly.

I've dealt with plenty of companies that, as a rule, always pay a few days after their payment term - say, they have 30 days, they'll pay after 33 or 35. Some will cite fixed payment cycles as reason - "We only do billing runs on Thursdays!" - while others won't comment on it at all. Most of the time, my company will let that slide, because it's hardly worth starting a discussion about a matter that will be resolved before you've gotten a reply from the relevant contact; occasionally, when someone higher up gets pissed off about our payment statistics, they'll stop shipment until all bills are paid in full. Such a measure will normally get the offending customer to behave for a few months, before they go back to their old shenanigans.

Just the cost of doing business, in the end. The more savy sales people will simply adjust the prices to reflect the real payment terms, and that's that.

[thehuckster]

That sounds like par for the course in vendor world. From what I've heard, Walmart, Staples, and other major retailers are extremely strict on how they receive inventory and get billed. If some manufacturer sends a pallet of product that has something wrong on the packing slip, it gets shipped back to the vendor, no questions asked, and the vendor has to swallow the shipping costs.

[emax4]

Yeesh! I can see them being miffed about something, but to risk losing their shipment? That's insane. Especially after having the driver drive so far only to find out that they won't get paid. Too bad they can't understand that humans make mistakes. Even if thew whole system was setup to be run by robots, they wouldn't understand that humans who make mistakes built the robots and the software.

I'd be so tempted to have the driver come back with their goods, then refuse to drive back out there unless payment is received upfront along with the cost of travel and gas back to the warehouse. They may or may not easily find another company to supply their goods, but let them deal with Wheater's problems.

[manybellsdown]

I was a receptionist once at a place where Accounting would not take incoming calls before 1pm. They said it was because they were too busy taking calls to get any work done, but really it was the whole "buying time" thing.

1pm for us in California is nearly the end of the day for half the country. So in reality, they only had to take calls from about 1-3 or so. Which left less time for people to complain that the company wasn't paying their bills.

The company went under about 3 years ago. At the time, the owner had 6 planes. Six. Planes. JET planes. Gee I wonder why the bills didn't get paid?

[wagegoth]

The company went under about 3 years ago. At the time, the owner had 6 planes. Six. Planes. JET planes. Gee I wonder why the bills didn't get paid?

I temped at a mortgage company many years ago, and even when they started cutting back on expenses (including temps), they still managed to have the money to keep the company race car going -- the company race car that one of the owners raced, of course.

[Andara Bledin]

You ordered your stuff, we picked it up, loaded it into out trucks, drove across the freaking country to you and you wont pay for it because someone forgot a number or a dash? Oooookayyyyy then

This is actually really common with larger companies. They don't have the wherewithal to actually check into such claims, so unless your paperwork matches theirs to the dot, they just won't deal with it.

A couple of major aerospace suppliers do that. It's rally annoying, but it just means you have to double-check your entries before committing them to stone.

But it's totally annoying to deal with someone who says, "Oh, yeah, I see we have an open payable for this PO for this amount that we received on such and such day, and as soon as we get an invoice with the exact PO number on it, we just aren't going to cut you a check, despite the fact that we know we owe you money and this invoice that you did send matches everything except for the last 2 digits being transposed." >_<

^-.-^

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

My job occasionally involves checking in merchandise delivered by UPS or Fed Ex. If numbers are transposed, either on a purchase order or in an ASN, or wrong in some other way, I won't be able to check the product in.

Which means it can't go to the floor and doesn't exist as far as inventory is concerned. So we have to send a note up to corporate, or hope somebody else does, and they have to check if there's a mistake on our end or the vendor's, and then fix it.

If we have to wait long enough for the fix, I imagine that messes with billing and gets accounts payable antsy.

It's probably just a matter of being exactly sure of what you're paying for. We certainly aren't stalling for time with our vendors--at least not that I know of.

[Kisa]

Ohhhh thanks everyone! That makes sense

[earl colby pottinger]

Fraud

Don't forget the fake invoices some scammers send out, hoping accounting will not check if the items were really ordered or not.

Accounting in too many companies in the past would just cut a check and mail it, leaving the company with product that was never ordered, more produce than they could store and in the case of real scammers - no product at all.

The computer store I worked at dealt directly with Apple, HP and IBM. One day we received an invoice claiming we order toners from a scammer at 10-12% more than our own costs! You should had heard our accountant curse them off. And when they tried to threaten her back by calling the police she just said, "Please do, I would love for you to be here when I show they the paper work.".

[Gizmo]

But it's totally annoying to deal with someone who says, "Oh, yeah, I see we have an open payable for this PO for this amount that we received on such and such day, and as soon as we get an invoice with the exact PO number on it, we just aren't going to cut you a check, despite the fact that we know we owe you money and this invoice that you did send matches everything except for the last 2 digits being transposed." >_<

^-.-^

We have the same thing with one of ours: They won't pay unless the delivery note number exactly matches the GRN in their system. Even worse: They are supposed to be self billing and the invoices we send out are only "for information".

One of their guys will email me querying delivery and when I go back to him will say "yep we have a batch reciepting Item X times 30 on that day... reference YYY" but still be grumpy with me if I say "yep, that links in our system" or "yes, our sub number is that with the last two digits transposed". He'll throw a whole fit about it. Half the time its their own staff who have entered the wrong number.