Switch Billing Method without Permission?

[GaryG]

Late last year a prominent apparel Wholesaler, after merging two or more companies
arbitrarily decided to "switch billing methods" from Mailing invoices to Emailing them
---without--- our permission. Hence day after day went by and invoices piled up silently while
we thought they were mailing, only to have them say, oh 30 days, 30 days.

My wife is going over every dime. It has us going over paperwork for many hours and
ready to bill them for our time! After spending tens of thousands of dollars a year, like that would work. 

Anyone have this switch from mail to email or fax to email without asking?

[royster13]

So are you saying you somehow did not know you owed money because they did not "snail" mail you invoices?.....I have PO log that I match to invoices an almost daily basis......If I have not seen an invoice I look online......Most suppliers have online access these days....

[GaryG]

Yeah very busy and many orders in a week slip by when they have been coming
a certain way for years...

[ebscreen]

I'd wager there's legalities behind that. I know for a fact to switch to paperless from my bank I had to jump
through two rings of fire. Signature required.

Definitely annoying and worth mentioning to them, but unless they are trying to charge you late fee's or whatever
I wouldn't raise too much of a stink.

[royster13]

I am sorry, but trying to blame this on a supplier is "bogus"......You ordered the goods and you know you owe for them....Did you just ignore the emails?....

As far as banks changing their statement procedures, I suspect that because they are "Federally Regulated" there are some hoops they had to jump through....

[sben763]

I know exactly who your referring to and I got at least 4 emails, 2 letters in the mail and it was on their home page for at least 2 months. I actually glad they finally did that I was tired of all the wasted paper.

I never had to sign anything for all 3 of our banks, simply signed in online check the box for paperless and done.

[GaryG]

Just asking if it happened to someone else. It's the principle of the thing.
If it hasn't happened to you, pass Mr. 13……..

[ZooCity]

No, we have the opposite problem.  We went "paperless" a few years ago and the paper mail is actually way more work, bookkeeper needs to scan it in.  Additionally, we use our inboxes as to do lists so items not hitting an inbox may not be promptly attended to.

I can't relate to your issue unfortunately and have to side with royster on this.

However, I can relate in a way.  A couple years ago an employee here embezzled money for a few months.  This person was pocketing cash and not paying our suppliers.  They were still ordering the supplies though so, with a little smoke and mirrors, nobody was the wiser- product was coming in and going out in a seemingly normal fashion.  I was shocked that one of the suppliers, whom we had racked up the biggest tab with, had just let the purchasing go on and on, way outside of terms, over account limit and all the while they were receiving no payments from us. It was busy season so the amount was significant.  We typically pay on time and after enough of this our rep finally called (and got through to me) to see what the deal was....and that's when things got super shitty for this guy.  That supplier loaned us that balance for, I think it was nearly 6 months, before we were able to clean house and pay it down. 

Moral of my story is that you need tighter bookkeeping.  The only way "surprise" supply bills come up is when you don't have the books locked in.  Take this as a good opportunity to do so, lest you be put in my shoes someday and, believe me, I would have bet heavily that something like that could never happen in my company.  Be thankful a simple matter of invoice delivery method brought the issue to light. 

[beanie357]

Probably same supplier.
We got mostly snail mail per request. It goes to a box, accounting gets it by in house distribution, matches with other paper concerning jobs it was for, schedules on a check run. Simple, old timely, works well.
But some were email only for some unknown reason. So, every month, they have to proof the statement, find the missing ones, print them, and usually cut a manual check to stay in terms. Aggravating.

We match anyone's system to get paid. Why would we not? Heck, if they want it carrier pigeon, guess we will be in the bird biz.

But, it should never go past the 1st statement without a call to clarify and get whatever your system requires. We are on 3rd call, with limited success so far. Rep is actually stumped. We think has to do with location they ship from, as their merger was iffy on the integration of two computer systems.