A spreadsheet with every customer in it
Every year your costs move: disposal, fuel, wages, vehicles. Every year you put your prices up. The process starts with an export of every customer and their current rate into a spreadsheet. Someone works out the new price for each line, applying the percentage, then correcting for customers on fixed price contracts, those who signed recently, those on special rates and the national account that has its own terms.
Then letters are written. Mail merge from the spreadsheet, printed or emailed. Some customers reply to query the rise. Some cancel. Then the new prices are typed into the billing system one by one, and the first invoices at the new rate reveal the mistakes: a customer who should have been excluded, a rate typed wrong, a notice that was never sent.
Why a simple rise is complicated
The percentage is simple. The exceptions are not, and they sit in contracts rather than in the billing system.
- Contracts differ in whether and when prices can change, and how much notice is needed.
- Some customers signed recently and should not see a rise yet under your own policy.
- Rates are per container and stream, so a customer can have several prices to change.
- Responses and cancellations arrive by email and phone and are tracked loosely.
- Billing is updated by hand, separately from the notice that was sent.
What your contracts allow is a matter for your terms and your adviser. The problem we solve is applying your decisions accurately.
What errors in the price run cost
An increase applied to a customer who should have been excluded leads to credit notes and an annoyed customer who now doubts every invoice. A rise that was notified but never updated in billing is revenue you decided to charge and did not.
The process takes weeks of office time at the start of the year, and the queries it creates run on for a month or more. The more accounts you have, the worse it gets.
How we run the price increase
What we build takes the price increase out of the spreadsheet and runs it from your data and rules.
- Contract type, start date and any price terms are brought together with each account's current rates, from your billing or waste software and your contract records.
- You set the rules: the increase by stream or container, exclusions such as contracts signed within a period you choose, fixed-price contracts and accounts with their own terms.
- The run produces a proposed new rate for every line, with the rule that produced it. A person reviews the list, sorted by size of change, and can adjust any line.
- Notices are generated from your template with each customer's old and new prices and the effective date, and sent by email or post.
- Responses are logged against each account: accepted, queried, negotiated, cancelled. Negotiated rates are recorded with who agreed them.
- On the effective date, the approved new rates are updated in billing through its API or an import, and a check compares the first invoices at the new rate with the approved list.
| Account type | Rule applied |
|---|---|
| Standard rolling contract | Standard increase from effective date |
| Signed recently | Excluded under your policy |
| Fixed price term | Excluded until term ends |
| Own terms, such as a group account | Handled individually |
| Negotiated after notice | Agreed rate recorded and applied |
How the run goes this year
The office manager sets the rules for this year's rise and runs the proposal. The review list shows every account with its proposed new rates. She sorts by largest change, spots two customers on old special rates where the rule produces a big jump, and adjusts them. She approves the rest.
Notices go out the same week. Queries arrive and are logged; a few are negotiated and the agreed rates are recorded. On the effective date billing updates itself from the approved list, and the first invoice run matches it.
Does your price rise live in a spreadsheet?
- Price increases are worked out in a spreadsheet and typed into billing.
- Customers who should have been excluded have received a rise.
- Notices and billing updates are done by different people at different times.
- Negotiated rates after the notice are not recorded consistently.
- The price rise takes weeks of office time every year.