Recently, News Limited gave newsagents permission to charge in advance for newspaper home delivery accounts.
I am curious as to how many newsagents are actually billing in advance and if so what issues / challenges have been encountered?
Recently, News Limited gave newsagents permission to charge in advance for newspaper home delivery accounts.
I am curious as to how many newsagents are actually billing in advance and if so what issues / challenges have been encountered?
no not here , flat out getting payment at the end of the month
Any new customer has been put on advance for a while so no problems. About 50/50 advance/account. Luckly our customers are normally prompt in paying accounts and we monitor the slow payers and remind them that the payment is due.
Not in advance here but dont have to much trouble collecting payment same few pay late now I stop there paper if not paid by due date they always then come and pay to get deliveries restarted
HWT told us we could only charge new customers in advance, old customers had to stay in arrears. This is contrary to the advice they sent out, but I went with it to save arguments with existing customers.
Fairfax state that you are not to charge in advance, you actually have to give them 30 days credit.
We have decided the better option is to encourage customers onto subscriptions wherever possible. This is the best scenario, as it removes the cost and time of managing accounts, we get our cash weekly instead of monthly, and removes the risk of bad debts. We are distribution only, so appreciate that this may not suit retail outlets.
Nobody (publisher) can complain if you invoice half of your delivery customers in arrears and half in advance. This at least evens out your cash flow and liability
I am considering moving all of my accounts to advance, it would be a considerable improvement in cashflow, I am concerned about the potential negatives though.
Would be a nightmare for us.
As it is it’s such a headache at accounts time at the end of each month as it is, with customers swanning off on their little sojourns – a day here, 3 days there. Always the ones who choose to be billed in arrears.
GRRR
But the ones who choose to be in front have always been welcome.
All new customers are billed in advance or prepay to News … either way still prepay…
Dean…worth checking with HWT again. I was told I can move existing customers to payment in advance as long as they agreed.
We charge all of the customers 4 weeks in advance which helped us paying HWT invoices on time. first some of the customers came with questions. we explained and they agreed to pay in advance. they understood the matter. meanwhile we lost 3 or 4 customers as the result.
The next miserable old bastard who comes in here to query billing periods because of his deal being interrupted due to his half-week (the less profitable half of the week, I might add!!!) absences has stuffed it all up, will be asked to deal directly with the publisher, who can then advise and pay us. Then the publisher can have the headache of working it all out, and engaging with difficult ‘customers’ who haven’t a clue of how it all works.
The publishers themselves, can then drag out all the old records, showing previous billing, how things were adjusted at their own expense and inconvenience.
From now on, all delivery ‘customers’, who aren’t customers of our store, but are very demanding regarding their papers, will be directed to the publisher, who dreams up these deals, to arrange direct payment and start-stop periods.
Their customers, their problem.
Stumbled across this article in the archives as it is a topic of concern to my agency.
I have recently been threatened with a breach notice from Fairfax for informing customers that we will no longer be offering credit to customers for home delivery.
Am i alone here or are other agents forcing Fairfax home delivery customers to be pre-paid?
Amanda, I’d respond to Fairfax, in writing, asking that they provide specific details of the breach. This seems extraordinary.
My understanding is that you cannot charge Fairfax in advance, you have to charge them in arrears and give them 4 weeks or 1 month to pay. If you check your contract it should tell you exactly what you can do.
I would suggest that it may be better to encourage your Fairfax customers to go on subscription, this will mean you get the money deducted off your Fairfax bill the following week, which both improves cashflow and reduces the risk of bad debt to nil, and customers get a substantial discount.
Dean your comments about the contract are correct. It is this clause of the contract Fairfax are using to threaten a breach.
Unfortunately the majority of Fairfax home deliveries for stores in our region are for a regional newspaper which DOES NOT offer subscriptions to customers. Hence the debt carried is substantial and HIGH Risk.
Whats worse is I know that two neighbouring distribution agents are making customers pay in advance, yet the breach threat is real.
Fair enough Amanda, I just assumed it was for one of the mainstream titles like The Age or Financial Review, I did not consider local titles.
That places you in a more difficult position, as you are contractually bound to not charge customers in advance, meaning you wear the risk and Fairfax washes its hands of the problem.
You could try your association for help but there is probably not much they can do.
What if a Customer wants to pay in advance at their own request and it is not an SMH or Age title i.e. a country newspaper with no subscriptions (but still a Fairfax paper). Further when I took over my News Agency I did nor sign or see a contract with my local Fairfax papers, one of which turnover wise beats the SMH account by a factor of 3. My belief contract here is governed by Current practices and agreements struck from time to time.
A lot of my Customers pay for the papers in advance weekly, fortnight and monthly. The Tower Software handles pay to a date very well.
Peter, the contract doesn’t stop you from accepting payments from customers in advance, just from sending them an invoice charging them in advance.
I delivered papers for 30 years and ALWAYS billed 8 weeks in advance. I was
never questioned by News Ltd and if I was
I would have said “the paper is yours to tell me when/where to throw but the customer is mine”
I had to pay for papers weekly so who can afford to pay for 8 weeks of papers in arrears – not me?
It was never an issue and the Retailer system did it beautifully.
When I purchased the business I did it
slowly by billing for 4 weeks in advance then 5, then 6, then 7 and finally 8 and
it worked a treat.
June the problem is that the customer is not yours but is the publishers if you read how they interpret their contract. It’s the reason that can walk in and request your customer list and take it away as part of the t2020 programme for example.
I had some advice that they actually couldn’t claim the customers, particularly if they didn’t initiate the transaction however I don’t believe its worth worrying about individually and I was only too happy to be rid of my run and the hassles that go with it (less than two weeks to go !). It really needs the associations to go after them but of course they won’t as they have neither the finances, the strength or the organisation (or probably inclination) to do so.
Dean, tried the associations, they claim Fairfax cannot enforce the breach as other agents make customers pay in advance, but they were not willing to divulge who..
June did you do this for Fairfax papers also? If so, are you in NSW?
Surely if other agents are doing it, a precedent is set?
Many newsagency have advised their customers what the charge would be at a future date. While this may seem pedantic, it is important. Customers, with some newsagency software, are not billed, just advised what the charge would be.
In this situation, a claim by a publisher of a breach could be defended.
Amanda, we did 8 weeks in advance for both News Ltd & FF papers for 30 years
with nary a problem.
Amanda, I forgot to say we are in SA.