The first week of the month
Month end in the courier office means invoicing. The dispatch export has hundreds of jobs. Some have no price because they were booked in a hurry. Some have waiting time noted on a job sheet but not in the system. A large customer requires a PO number on every job and rejects the invoice if one is missing, and the controller did not ask for it on half of them. Another wants invoices split by department.
The office manager spends a week sorting it out. Invoices go out late. The large customer rejects theirs anyway, because of three missing POs, and pays a month later.
Why month end is a scramble
Problems with a job are found at invoicing, weeks after the job, when the people who could fix them have forgotten. Missing prices, missing references, extras that were never added. And every customer has its own format and rules.
| Invoicing problem | When it should have been caught |
|---|---|
| Job with no price | When it was booked |
| Missing PO or cost centre | At booking, or when the customer confirmed |
| Waiting and extras not added | When the driver recorded them |
| Wrong customer or account | At booking |
| Customer-specific invoice format | Set up once, applied automatically |
What slow invoicing costs
Cash flow, directly. Courier firms pay drivers weekly and fuel constantly, and get paid monthly in arrears. Every week of delay in invoicing is a week longer before you are paid, and every rejected invoice adds a month.
Revenue leaks too. Extras that were not added at month end are rarely added later.
And the office manager's week spent invoicing is a week not spent on credit control, driver queries or winning customers.
Disputes also get harder with time. A customer questioning a job from the first week of last month wants to see the POD, the booking and the waiting time. If those are scattered across the dispatch system, a driver's photos and a job sheet in a tray, answering the query takes longer than the job did, and small disputed amounts are often written off just to close them.
Some customers pay faster when the invoice is right first time and arrives with the detail they need to approve it. Late, incomplete invoices go to the bottom of their accounts payable pile.
Invoicing we build around your jobs
- Completed jobs read from your courier software or dispatch board as they are closed, not at month end.
- A check on each job against the customer's requirements: price present, PO or cost centre present, required POD attached.
- An exceptions list during the month, so controllers fix missing references while the job is fresh, including a request to the customer for a missing PO.
- Extras such as waiting, additional drops and out-of-hours surcharges added from the job record.
- Invoices built per customer in their required format and split, with a job listing and PODs linked.
- Posting to Xero, QuickBooks or Sage through their APIs, and delivery to the customer's email or accounts payable portal.
What month end becomes
Invoices ready on the first working day, from jobs that were checked as they happened. Fewer rejections, because references are chased in the month rather than after it. And the office manager gets a week back.
Signs your invoicing needs this
- Month-end invoicing takes days.
- Invoices are rejected for missing PO numbers.
- Waiting time and extras are added by hand, if at all.
- Each large customer's invoice format is built manually.
- Jobs without prices are discovered at month end.