[Shrek]

When using Royal Mail do they provide any proof of postage? I know this might come across as a strange question with it being the "Royal Mail" but how do you know that they have delivered your leaflets? Do they provide a report?

Royal Mail pay the posties extra for delivering door2door leaflets. If it has been found the a postie is not delivering leaflets and instead throwing them in the bin, they have internal undercover police who follow the posties round gathering evidence- photos etc. Once they have enough evidence, the postie is sacked, all posties know this and would not entertain the idea of NOT delivering mail as they not only lose their livelihood, but they lose their pensions too.
Hope this helps.

[Status Check]

Many thanks for the insight Shrek. I just had a vision of pallets of leaflets just sat there in a Royal Mail warehouse collecting dust because they couldn't be bothered to post them out.

[John Mart]

one other thing the leaflet of course doesn't say regular.Im guessing your asking them and going along with what they say.do you only accept Gocardless like your fellow big boy lee or are you not quite yet at that lvl to demand that 

It’s a regular service only generally although we do 1/2 day one offs.

No, take Gocardless but it’s just one option.

Lovley well done amazing progress what % of those 700 went on gocardless of the top of your head 30%?

also if you spent 10k or whatever it was if you add everything up together including all one offs etc so you can figure it out purely as in and out.End of the day if i was to drop and clean everything then find out whos regular could be good. Say 10k spent 300 cleans for £6k only 4k down but then youll get regs.
leaflets seem pretty exciting 

Everyone that phones gets told it's a regular service only. They won't all last obviously but that's how it's sold.

Hardly any Gocardless. I don't really push it. I see no benefit overall.

nice one although i have to disagree with the gocardless dont you find it a pain cross referencing bacs? text reminders and stuff ?

Yes, but I'm not keen to pay £5kish a year in fees for the time it takes.

[Oliver James]

If you are growing your business then you should consider pushing go cardless more.

It is okay to be waiting for payment if you just have one van, but with multiple vans, and ALL the associated expenses, then managing cashflow becomes an issue.

Go Cardless has the following advantages.

Team members don't have to handle cash and cheques.
You don't waste time chasing debt or processing hundreds of tiny sub-£50 payments
You will have cashflow to meet your expenses
Direct debit customers have a much higher retention rate
Make then sign up to direct debit before you do any work. Then you won't
waste time doing first cleans for customers who only want a one off.

[Lee Pryor]

If you are growing your business then you should consider pushing go cardless more.

It is okay to be waiting for payment if you just have one van, but with multiple vans, and ALL the associated expenses, then managing cashflow becomes an issue.

Go Cardless has the following advantages.

Team members don't have to handle cash and cheques.
You don't waste time chasing debt or processing hundreds of tiny sub-£50 payments
You will have cashflow to meet your expenses
Direct debit customers have a much higher retention rate
Make then sign up to direct debit before you do any work. Then you won't
waste time doing first cleans for customers who only want a one off.

Wow its like Oliver read my mind. Couldnt have put it better myself. Not seeing the value in this for anyone that aspires to having more than 2/3 vans on the road is a big mistake, trust me. My business would simply not be possible without it.  Wait till you have a 20k vat bill and you dont have it in the bank because 3000 mrs smiths havnt remembered to pay you yet.

[Crystal-clear]

If you are growing your business then you should consider pushing go cardless more.

It is okay to be waiting for payment if you just have one van, but with multiple vans, and ALL the associated expenses, then managing cashflow becomes an issue.

Go Cardless has the following advantages.

Team members don't have to handle cash and cheques.
You don't waste time chasing debt or processing hundreds of tiny sub-£50 payments
You will have cashflow to meet your expenses
Direct debit customers have a much higher retention rate
Make then sign up to direct debit before you do any work. Then you won't
waste time doing first cleans for customers who only want a one off.

Wow its like Oliver read my mind. Couldnt have put it better myself. Not seeing the value in this for anyone that aspires to having more than 2/3 vans on the road is a big mistake, trust me. My business would simply not be possible without it.  Wait till you have a 20k vat bill and you dont have it in the bank because 3000 mrs smiths havnt remembered to pay you yet.

Lol. that must suck i didn't realize you need to pay VAT on income you didn't receive yet from Mrs smith tho ?
surly you aint paying VAT on unpaid work.

[John Mart]

We have no cash flow problems ever. Most months the sales and payment figures are almost identical. I have an overdraft facility if I ever need it. I don’t think I would ever restrict  payment options. I just do not see the point.

[John Mart]

And think of all the perfectly good customers you didn’t pick up because they didn’t want to pay by DD.

[Lee Pryor]

ok, if you get to twice the size you are now which I believe is 3? If you can still say point 1 then fair play to you.

Point 2 the number of people that dont use us because it has to be DD is literally 1 in 50 or less, so no impact there.

Crystal clear you dont pay vat on money you havnt recieved unless your turnover is over 1.2million. However the vat bill lags 6 weeks after the quarter your paying for and you have the other bigger expenses month to month. So if you have a slow cashflow month following 3 good ones in your vat quarter theres the problem. 

[Scrimble]

very surprising that you are not pushing GC 8 Weekly,

[John Mart]

very surprising that you are not pushing GC 8 Weekly,

Why? I’m happy with my cash flow. I genuinely have no problems. I pay £150 a year for an overdraft facility which I dip into very rarely.  Sales and revenue are virtually identical, I have very few non payers and bank reconciliation takes a couple of hours a week. To be honest now I’m not cleaning windows it will give me something to do. 

£2% of £250k? No thanks. Non payers are a tiny fraction of that.

[Lee Pryor]

go cardless is 1% of the transaction. Also that 1% never hits your bank account so is not taxable in vat or otherwise so from that you could argue its less than 1%.

At the end of the day its each to their own and if something is working well and continues to then why would someone change.

[John Mart]

Oh I thought it was 2%. But as you say, there’s no problem to fix. Much like card readers. I see no need of the cost.

[Frankybadboy]

surely by using the GC to the amount lee does then the money being in his bank quicker than B/Tansfer ,he gains interest on his account which would cover  or help cover transaction payments 

[Plankton]

When using Royal Mail do they provide any proof of postage? I know this might come across as a strange question with it being the "Royal Mail" but how do you know that they have delivered your leaflets? Do they provide a report?

Royal Mail pay the posties extra for delivering door2door leaflets. If it has been found the a postie is not delivering leaflets and instead throwing them in the bin, they have internal undercover police who follow the posties round gathering evidence- photos etc. Once they have enough evidence, the postie is sacked, all posties know this and would not entertain the idea of NOT delivering mail as they not only lose their livelihood, but they lose their pensions too.
Hope this helps.

So what happens when they they bin them and don't get caught. I personally don't rate posties and for those that get caught stealing mail or leaving it under their bed there's many more that have never been caught.

[Shrek]

Like I said , the posties know what happens if they go against the rules.
If you have over 160,000 people working for you like Royal Mail does , you bound to get a few bad apples. The majority of workers are honest decent people

[John Mart]

surely by using the GC to the amount lee does then the money being in his bank quicker than B/Tansfer ,he gains interest on his account which would cover  or help cover transaction payments 

90% of customers pay within 3/4 days though. GC is7 days I think.

[Arnold Palmer]

go cardless is 1% of the transaction. Also that 1% never hits your bank account so is not taxable in vat or otherwise so from that you could argue its less than 1%.

Are you certain about that?

[Arnold Palmer]

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-cash-accounting-scheme-notice-731#section5

[Arnold Palmer]

surely by using the GC to the amount lee does then the money being in his bank quicker than B/Tansfer ,he gains interest on his account which would cover  or help cover transaction payments 

90% of customers pay within 3/4 days though. GC is7 days I think.

Cash flow - I guess you'll have a certain % of your turnover outstanding, that'll be fairly constant, raising slightly throughout the month with a higher portion coming in around the end/beginning of the month. That % grows as you do. Switching everyone to direct debits would fix that percentage and reduce instances of debt write off.

Fees - 1% is pretty fair. Don't forget:

The Santander app is rubbish, paying in is a pain often taking 10-15 minutes at the machine and the search facility for transactions on the website is rubbish. You get what you pay for I guess.