Billing week, and the accounts team disappears
Every week or month, someone exports stock movements from the warehouse system, pastes them into a spreadsheet per customer and works out the charges. Pallets in store at the count date, pallets in and out, part weeks, pallets that moved from chilled to frozen, labour for relabelling, a blast freeze job, a late collection surcharge.
Each customer has a different rate card and a different rule for part weeks. Formulas are copied between sheets, and one customer's invoice is built with another customer's rates. When a customer queries a line, it takes an hour to reconstruct.
Why cold store billing is so fiddly
Storage billing looks simple and is not. The warehouse system records movements well; it is the translation into charges that sits in spreadsheets.
- Each customer has its own rates and rules for storage periods.
- Handling, extras and surcharges are recorded in different places.
- Pallets change chamber or regime and the rate changes with them.
- Minimum charges and free periods are applied by hand.
- Extra services on the dock are noted on paper and forgotten.
What spreadsheet billing costs
Unbilled extras are lost income every period. Billing errors lead to credits and disputes, and slow queries damage relationships with customers who compare your invoice with their own stock records. The people who build the invoices spend days of every period doing it.
Rate reviews are harder too. When you want to know whether a customer's contract still pays, the answer is scattered across a year of spreadsheets, each built slightly differently from the one before.
How we calculate charges from what actually happened
- We read stock and movement data from your WMS: pallets received, stored, moved between chambers and dispatched, with dates and customers.
- Each customer's rate card is set up once: storage by pallet and period, part-week rules, handling in and out, chamber or regime rates, minimums, free periods and extras.
- Extra services on the dock, such as relabelling, restacking, blast freezing or waiting time, are recorded as tasks on the warehouse team's device, against the customer and pallet.
- At the end of each period, charges are calculated and shown in a draft for review, with each line traceable to movements and tasks.
- Approved invoices go into Xero, Sage or your accounts system, with a breakdown the customer can check against their own records.
- Customers can see their charges and supporting movements in a portal, if you want to offer it.
| Charge | Calculated from |
|---|---|
| Storage | Pallets in store per period and chamber |
| Handling in | Receipt movements |
| Handling out | Dispatch movements |
| Extras | Tasks recorded on the dock |
| Minimums and free periods | Customer rate card |
What billing week looks like after
Charges are ready for review on the first day of the period. Accounts checks the exceptions, not every line. Customers receive invoices they can reconcile, and queries are answered by showing the movements behind a charge.
When a rate review comes round, you can see what each customer's work has actually earned against the effort it takes on the dock, because storage, handling and extras are recorded consistently from one period to the next instead of rebuilt each time.
Is your billing a spreadsheet exercise?
- Storage charges are built in spreadsheets every period.
- Each customer's rates live in their own sheet.
- Extra services on the dock are sometimes not billed.
- Customer queries take hours to answer.
- Billing depends on one or two people.