Paid on account, eventually
Your business customers are good work: a local builder's vans, an estate agent's pool cars, a care company's fleet of small hatchbacks, and a couple of leasing and fleet management companies who send drivers your way. They pay on account. In theory.
In practice, invoices come back. One has no purchase order number because the driver did not have one when they dropped the van off. One is for work above the account's authorisation limit and nobody got approval from the fleet manager. One is addressed to the care company's head office but they wanted it split by branch. Each rejection means an email, a corrected invoice and another month's wait.
Every account has different rules
Private customers pay at the counter. Account customers pay later, and each one has its own conditions. One requires an order number on every invoice. Another requires approval for anything over a certain value. A third wants mileage and driver name on each line. A leasing company might require work to be authorised through its own portal before it starts.
These rules usually live in someone's head or on a note stuck to the monitor. The advisor who books the job may not know them, and the person who does the invoicing finds out when it bounces.
What rejected invoices cost the garage
| Rejection reason | What it costs |
|---|---|
| Missing order number | Chasing the driver or fleet manager after the work is done |
| Work over the authorised limit | An argument about work already fitted |
| Wrong address or cost centre | Re-issuing and re-sending, with a new wait |
| Missing mileage or driver | The invoice queried line by line |
| Portal authorisation not raised | Payment refused outright by some fleet companies |
Cash flow suffers most. Account work may be a large share of your turnover, and it is paid late because the paperwork was not right the first time.
How we build the account rules into the job
- Each account's requirements are recorded once: order number needed or not, authorisation limit, who approves, invoice address, cost centre split, and any data it wants on each invoice.
- When a job is booked for an account vehicle, the booking screen asks for exactly those items and warns if any are missing.
- If extra work would take the job over the account's limit, the advisor is prompted to get approval, and the approval is recorded with the approver's name and time.
- For fleet companies that require authorisation through their own portal, the job shows a clear step to do so, with the reference field that must be filled.
- Before an account invoice is issued from your garage management system, a check confirms it has everything that account needs. Incomplete invoices go to a short holding list.
- At month end, statements are produced per account in the layout it wants, and sent to the right contacts.
We do not change your terms with customers. We make sure the terms you already agreed are met on every job, without relying on memory.
A month end without the bounce-backs
The builder's van arrives without an order number. The booking screen flags it, the advisor texts the office manager at the building firm, and the number is on the job before the van goes on the ramp. The care company's invoices go to each branch because the account says so. The fleet company's portal authorisation is done before the work starts.
At month end the holding list has two invoices, both waiting on an order number, and both are chased that day rather than discovered next month.
- Each account's rules applied at booking
- Approval recorded when work goes over the limit
- Incomplete invoices held, not sent
- Statements in the format each account expects
Does this match your account customers?
- Account invoices are often sent back for missing details.
- Only one person knows each fleet customer's rules.
- Extra work goes over account limits without approval.
- Fleet company portal authorisations are sometimes missed.
- Account customers regularly pay later than their terms.