Recently I was visiting a potential customer who is disobeying the number one commandment in business, "Thou shalt not slow down thine own cash flow." It really amazes me sometimes how unfocused companies can get. You don't need a business degree to know that getting paid should be your number one priority. Slowing it down should get people fired. But enough companies are aparently asleep on this topic that I thought I would write about it.
In this particular situation, the company I visited was slowing down their cash flow by not billing for their goods until they received an invoice from the freight carrier. Years ago, this might have been a common practice. Sometimes an unforeseen accessorial charge would be in a freight bill that the company did not estimate for (such as a liftgate fee). So it was worth waiting to get the correct charges rather than being forced to collect on an additional fee from the customer (which we know how that usually works).
This company told me they invoice their customer 5-7 days after the shipment went out. This is because they wait until they get the bill, then it sits for a day or two until the billing clerk gets to it.
But there is NO REASON to operate this way anymore. Not in 2008. The trucking companies have made their websites so resourceful (they actually have been doing this for years but for those slow pokes we'll act like its new) that you can get anything you want from them. You can pull a bill of lading or a delivery receipt. You can find out tranist times, terminal locations and freight rates. You can even create a bill of lading from these sites. That's right, you don't have to buy pre-printed bill of ladings anymore. (I apologize for putting you to sleep, but beleive me some people have no clue about these efficiencies)
These websites are great. And the best tool for speeding up your cashflow most carrier websites have a detailed report of all the shipments that went out for the day which also includes the freight rates. Yep, believe it. At the end of the day, most major carriers will post all the shipments for that day and the charges that go along with them.
See freight charges on far right hand corner.
This allows companies to get their invoices to their customers out the same day or the day after a shipment goes out. There is no need to wait for the paper copy to come in the mail anymore.
If your company is waiting for a freight invoice from a trucking company before you invoice your customer, lets get with it. Change it today and add a week to your cashflow.
The company I met with, which was the inspiration for this article, almost kissed me at this novel idea. This was FREE information I gave to them, so I am passing it along to you for FREE as well.
This is just another tip from the Freight Savings Guys! If you want freight savings tips emailed to you as they come out just subscribe to the RSS Feed at the top of this blog.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment