Post office or some other way

[Blonde brain]

So i'm fed up with the queues in my local post office.
we post around 30 - 60 parcels a day what other alternatives are there?

I spoke to royal mail who were not at all helpful.

On another point does everyone print a paper back up copy of every order.
Is this necessary?
What happened to the paperless office?

[fleetwood]

Hi Georgia
Wow - thats a LOT of parcels!!
With that heavy mailing, you can have your mail collected.
For parcels under 2 kg, Royal mail usually works out the cheapest for postage costs.
They charge an annual fee for collection of £260 (works out around £1 a day).
You can apply for packetpost, which is cheaper than regular post, so will easily earn back the collection fee, and is really easy to operate under licence.
Each parcel needs a simple stamp or label, rather than postage stamps or franking, and you simply need to add up the total weight of the days mailing, and didvide by the number of parcels, to get an average weight. This is what you are charged on.
Try contacting Rotal Mail sales - make it clear you are a BUSINESS customer - and you should find them more helpful. Don't bother asking at the Post Office - they are not geared up for buisness users.

If your parcels are heavier, Parcelforce also collect, and will do so for free if your sending a few a day. RAtes are negotiable, but not as cheap as Royal Mail. Be prepared to stand your ground and haggle with them. For the amount of parcels you are sending you are a 'key' customer, and they will want you business.

Martin

[Blonde brain]

Thank you for your advice, this is quite interesting. Do you still fill out proof of posting certificates? We have about a 1% loss rate - which i think is quite high.

Any answers on back up paper copies of invoices?

[fleetwood]

1% loss rate is about same for us too.
Personally, I'd say its not all the Royal Mails fault.
There are a lot of careless / stupid customers who don't think they should make any effort to locate 'their' parcel, even though there is no-one in to answer when the postmans comes a knocking!
For proof of posting we use our own maifests - simply listing name, address line 1 and postcode. Its not an 'official' prood of posting, but I was told when I signed up that they give business customers a certain amount of leeway, providing claims are no higher than average.
In practice, the claims procedure is long and messy, and we rarely claim, taking the loss as a right off against profits.
99% of packages arrive next day without hassle, without recorded delivery, so I justify loss right off as 100 x recorded delivery fee saved is more than 1% cost of loss!!
Yes, we keep paper back up copies. When you have to sort out a problem or query, a paper copy is a lot easier to cart around than the computer.

Martin

[Blonde brain]

Thank you
I will call them tomorrow!

[george]

On the paperless office... we've not long started dealing with Euroffice, they email all yer invoices, and statements. Guess what, we forgot to pay the first one as I never thought to print it out... doh!

Save the trees!

[acompton]

On the paperless office; I happened to ask to my accountant about this yesterday. He said that there were two issues to consider:
1. If you’re transferring your sales figures into a paper accounting system, then a regular Tax Report is sufficient.
2. You need to keep a record of all your individual sales for the purposes of a VAT or Revenue inspection as they will want to track through some example sales. If you can archive & restore your sales in Actinic Order Management, that would do the job, otherwise you have to print them all out and keep them for 6 years.

Alan Compton
www.greenknightgames.co.uk

[runningwolf]

1% is awful, since I started selling on ebay and then with the store I have sent out approx 1500 parecels, all over the world and only had 1 that was lost and 2 returned to me. So 1% sounds suspicious, maybe not all down to Royal Mail.

Regards

Paul
www.theorderofinitiative.co.uk

[Froogle]

On another point does everyone print a paper back up copy of every order.
Is this necessary?
What happened to the paperless office?

I don't keep a paper back up copy. I don't see the point. Imagine trying to search through a filing cabinet full for an order. Actinic's in built search facility is bad enough.

As a note (I'm sure you'll already know) I am sure that under the distance selling regulation the customer has to get a paper copy of their invoice. An electronic one is not suffice.

[Blonde brain]

I would prefer not to keep a paper copy invoice....
So my question is how can i 'empty' the sales out of Actinic on a monthly basis on to a disc?
Once you have done this how can Mr VAT man Audit them?

[fleetwood]

Whilst I am sure that most of us send paper copies anyway, the DSR DO NOT specify that you need to supply a paper copy - an email will suffice, and I quote from the DSR:

"8.1 When a contract has been made the supplier must send to the consumer
confirmation of the main items of prior information (items (i) to (vi) in paragraph 7.1).
This confirmation must be provided in writing or another durable medium, such as fax or e-mail, unless it has already been provided in writing, e.g. in a catalogue or advertisement that the consumer has seen."

The DSR are fairly complex and long winded, and often misquoted and misinterpreted.

They can be read in full here:

http://www.dti.gov.uk/ccp/topics1/pdf1/bus_guide.pdf

Martin

[fleetwood]

Georgia
One way would be to save your invoices as pdf files.
This is no more complicated than printing to a printer - you simply print to the PDF writer instead.
These could be archived to disk, and retrievable and printable if required by VAT or tax man.
Abode Acrobat is the most famous PDF writer, but also the most expensive.
The reader is available free.
There are a number of free, or very cheap PDF writers available on the web these days, although many of the 'freebies' also come packaged with annoying adware.

Martin

[Blonde brain]

Thank you for that.
Great save on money, trees, printer ink, storgage!

[acompton]

Try searching for CutePDF. Its a free download that apppears as a printer in Word. No annoying extras.

Alan Compton
www.greenknightgames.co.uk