subject: Third Party Billing And Large Couriers [print this page] Running your own business and billing services, is hard enough. Adding billing services for the things you ship is no better. So how can you make this easier? Well finding out what kind of services and advantages your shipping company or trucking services will give; will be your first step. One of these advantages would make your billing easier, if you could use a third party billing, a lot of stresses would be released. But, how possible is this?
Good news is that you can do this. Bad news, well it will take some time to figure it out. Fortunately, there is no policy that covers every business about the third party billing. Usually it is just the preference of the individual company if they decide not to let this occur. If a company does allow this, be prepared to jump through some hoops in the process. For instance, they may require you to have an account with them. Although, this shouldn't be a big problem, especially if you have used them for a while and know they deliver on their promises. The account holding prospect is simply a protection for them, and then they know more information about you in the case anything should happen.
Sometimes the companies will only allow this to happen with the cash/collect on delivery methods used. This is where the couriers will deliver your parcel and then pick up the payment. This works best if the person you are shipping to is going to cover the cost of shipment. As with the third party billing, only certain companies will do the COD type of delivery. Then chances are, if they do the COD they will also allow the billing feature. This may kill two birds with one stone, with your business billing and administrative tasks.
As you can see there are many options available for you to ease your financial office and the shipping methods. The company's that work with larger shipments and utilize trucking services are going to be more likely to employ these types of methods. The bigger the shipments the more the valuable the products they are carrying, therefore less chance that the courier company will get stuck without payment. This increases security on both ends and allows the courier companies to provide more services like these. More advantageous services mean a bigger client base and extra additives for those that have been clients for years.
