What to do when account pricing is not billed correctly?

[ZooCity]

I've bumped into a couple odd items this year that I've never encountered before in my 8 years of doing business, one of them is a supplier that sent over comprehensive pricing spreadsheets over a year ago has apparently been billing us at pricing much higher.  I caught it on our last order finally.  Some of the rates on this last invoice are outrageous, there is product we are purchasing in 5gal+ qty that is priced to us at the rate we could buy quarts for.  The last invoice we ordered over 52 gal of product overall.

The response from billing has been "your rep never setup the account pricing". 

The response from the rep has been "that was just a promotional rate". 

Me:  "5 spreadsheets of specific account pricing on many different products is a "promotional rate"?  There's no mention of this anywhere and it's clear that the pricing was for our account from the emails, wouldn't you agree?"

Rep:  " Yes, but there was a price increase late last year"

Me:  "When?  What is the new pricing?"

Rep:  "If you would also buy (other product) from us maybe we could look at a discount."

And on and on.....

Paraphrasing here of course.  I've never seen anything like this.  I feel confused, a little pissed and obviously ripped off.  I don't have time to even write this post or deal with it so that adds a good deal of frustration.

My thought is to have my bookkeeper audit the invoices, find discrepancies from the account pricing we were given and withhold the difference from the last invoice payment and move on to doing honest business elsewhere.  I'm just not sure if we could be somehow hurt again by doing this, like placed in some collections system, etc.   I have no clue what legally binds pricing, if anything.  I imagine it's likely we've just been hosed and can't fight it, or that it's not worth fighting.

Anyone faced anything like this before or have some advice?

[inkman996]

Ask them to reconcile or else you will be taking your business else where.

[blue moon]

It would be nice to know who the supplier is. If nothing else, we can withdraw our support for the solidarity sake, but it sure sounds like they don't deserve the business based on their practices. 'would hate to somebody with the same problem a year ago when it could have been prevented by exposure. . .

pierre

[Colin]

Sounds like it is the "other" ink supplier of yours... not the one that is next door to me.  If it is though - I can have a good talking to with them

I would push back.  The sales person clearly sent you pricing and you purchased on that pricing.  Just because their books are not right, does not mean they can hold you to it.  However.... if this is the company I think it is... they have a long standing habit of screwing customers over with this and acts....

Which is why I almost never order from them here in the pacific northwest...  There is a reason they are nicknamed ***worst.

My 2 cents.

[Sbrem]

ditto inkman. vote with your dollars.

Steve

[ZooCity]

Thanks for the responses.  I'll give this two more days and let ya know what resolved.  I'm not going to mention names unless it gets real bad and names deserved to be mentioned. 
I really just wanted to get a little discussion on what to do in this general scenario, I've had a couple snafus like this go down this year and thankfully none have been major but I'm getting close to just making everyone we buy anything from spell every little detail out and sign off on it.  This is the third time this year that terms or pricing or such were discussed with us over email, seller just does whatever they like after the sale(s) and literally ignores the original agreement and any email evidence of it.  It's just plain weird and probably just plain bad luck.

And the never ending quest to simply purchase product from suppliers without hassle drags on....

[Shanarchy]

If you have terms and currently owe them money, do an audit and pay the difference as you were originally quoted. Send a copy of this info with your check to the company. This way when their AR posts the check they will see exactly why you are short paying them. This should be brought to the attention of the credit manager that it is a discrepancy. (owner/manager if it is a small company).

I would then notify your sales rep what you did. I would politely ask that he makes sure the appropriate credit is issued, and at that time the two of you can meet to determine if you will do business in the future.

If you do not get a positive response from your sales rep, or a statement in the mail showing a 0 balance. Follow up with the credit manager/manager/owner (whomever would be the appropriate person at that company) and ask them the status of the credit. I would inform them that you are also withholding business with them due to this fact.

If you're still getting no luck, let them know that you will be posting the company name regarding this matter on the forums and that may cost them business in the future.

I would hold off on naming the company at this time as the company may be great people, and the sales rep could be the sour grape.

I would not worry about this being reported to a collection agency. If it did, you just provide them the documentation of the pricing you were given and show proof that you paid what you were quoted.

Just my 2 cents based on 16 years experience as a credit manager for a wholesaler.

Good luck.

[ZooCity]

Thank you Shanarchy.  What you laid out was actually my first response when this came up and I'm going to have my bookkeeper do this today when he's in.  I just had no idea if it would cause a bigger mess than the amount we were overcharged so it's good to hear that the given pricing can hold up for us in a collections situation.

I'm hoping the amount we were overcharged isn't too large and it irons out, I just don't understand how anyone thinks it's my job to pay staff to babysit theirs. 

[3Deep]

I hate open accounts and very rare that I use them, when I order I ask about pricing on items, been burn before with open accounts.  I know its nice to place your order and pay the invoice later, but if they don't tell you about increased pricing you'll be just what your in now, hope everything works out for ya, no one has money to throw away.

[pwalsh]

I hate open accounts and very rare that I use them, when I order I ask about pricing on items, been burn before with open accounts.  I know its nice to place your order and pay the invoice later, but if they don't tell you about increased pricing you'll be just what your in now, hope everything works out for ya, no one has money to throw away.

I don't necessarily agree that having an Open Account was the issue here, other than Chris would have caught the pricing error quicker had he been required to pay at the time of order.  I'm not saying that the company that I work for gets it right 100% of the time, but we do provide an emailed confirmation of order that includes a complete description of all items ordered, the unit price, shipping method, location the items are shipping from, and details on any additional charges to include taxes and shipping charges (where applicable). 

In this case I hope the supplier that Zoo City has been working with, does the right thing and addresses the difference between the prices that were quoted, and what was actually charged.  It would be disappointing for a supplier to make the internal communication issues that might exist between their sales and billing departments, into an issue that negatively impacts one of their customers.

[ZooCity]

And that's just one of many things I really love about Nazdar Peter, I know exactly what's what at all times.  It's the way things should be.  We've never had to have a conversation with anyone at Nazdar about pricing or stock, etc. or had to audit our invoices for errors. 

I do feel like a dummy for not checking this but I don't often see our invoices. 

I think in the case I brought up an in many instances like this, much of the problem boils down to the sales rep either cutting deals they aren't authorized to make or otherwise causing trouble by not communicating to their company what they are saying to their client.  I don't think any company would back up that kind of behavior though I have seen it happen once or twice where a company will, perhaps out of necessity, refuse to honor the agreement made by their sales staff.

[Sbrem]

One lesson that we can all take to heart here is that we need to review the bills when they come in to be sure we're paying the appropriate prices. If not, and a few months goes by, it just gets thicker and harder to trod through. It's the other side of the coin from invoicing correctly. Using purchase orders with the pricing on them (who has time for that, LOL) helps the office folk discover when charges are not what was agreed to...

Steve

[3Deep]

Peter I don't entirely disagree with you, but its just been much better for me not to have a lot of open accounts even as small as we are, I once paid $500 plus dollars for one book

Darryl

[ZooCity]

We did what Shanarchy outlined, no response so far but none needed as that's what their getting paid. 

Looking back on this, I'm 99% this was our rep acting like a turd.  I believe the pricing sheets given to me were actually list rates, so we've been getting charged above list.  Doing the audit, my bookkeeper noticed we were charged more for 5gal of product than single gallons on the last invoice....yep you read that right.  I can't see how that's an accident.   

So far this year we've:

• Purchased in full a used piece of equipment that we have literally owned for over 6months now but still do not have because the previous owner "needed it for production".  Our production has been bottlenecked for 6mo's while this prior owner was using our equipment, not to mention the fact that we timed this to install during our move.  Now we've had to move/reinstall old dryer and will have to tear out old, install new, all smack in the middle of summer.
• Purchased over 30k of garments on a single PO and had clear terms, in email and verbal from our rep.  Credit dept immediately setup terms of their own and held the order unless we complied.  They wouldn't respond to repeated emails showing the original terms and held our order.  They also refused to put their new terms in clear writing.  Luckily we had no problem with their baited/switched terms and could keep the order moving.
• Dealt with the situation in this thread.
• Had another vendor, just last week, try to screw us out of about $115 on a product re-order.  I caught it by chance when my bookkeeper had a question about terms on it.  Called and it was deja vu: 
  
  Me: It looks like there's an error on our last invoice.
  Them:  No, that price is correct.
  Me: We were given $x.xx on our order two months ago.
  Them:  There's no way that someone gave you that pricing.
  Me: Check your inbox for the email showing it and whom gave it.  (email fwd showing pricing for this and other products, clearly was not in error and was copy/pasted from a price list)
  Them:  That's just incorrect.
  Me:  Well, it's what you are going to be paid.  Could you send us over a "correct" price list so we can use it for future reference?
  Them: We don't have price sheets.  You can call or email for correct pricing.
  Me: 
  

A lot of this feels like regular old bad luck too but there's a theme with the supplies pricing it seems. It's mostly nickel and dime stuff but it's so blatantly an attempt to slip a hundo here, there, wherever past us.  All of these were Net account purchases. 

So have your people check your bills out folks, someone might be dipping into yer beer money, and get it all in writing, crystal clear, with an outline of what happens specifically when one party doesn't hold their end.

I won't complain too much, we're growing like crazy this year and I have no problem taking our growing supplies orders to honest vendors.  Hope all are having a good season, haven't had as much time to post on here as usual but still reading here and there from my phone where I can.

[Screened Gear]

• Purchased in full a used piece of equipment that we have literally owned for over 6months now but still do not have because the previous owner "needed it for production".  Our production has been bottlenecked for 6mo's while this prior owner was using our equipment, not to mention the fact that we timed this to install during our move.  Now we've had to move/reinstall old dryer and will have to tear out old, install new, all smack in the middle of summer.

What is wrong with you.
There is 3 options:
You go get it, now
They pay you rent
You back out of the sale and they give you your money back.
You have let them keep it for 6 months. When are you going to do something about it. a year? 2 years? When it breaks down.