New Style Invoices

[itsme]

Right, so Hillarys have come up with this fantastic Idea that from now on we have to give the customer the top copy of the invoice and send the lower part which is the remittance in to head office. So I ask myself, how do we track what work we have done, whether or not we have been paid, and raising a DOR how will we know which blind to DOR without a quick glance at the invoice, among other problems. So, who came up with this idea and it would be great to get anyone's opinion on this and whether or not you think it's going to work! HMMMMMMMM!!!!!

[GUEST]

Yes this seems very strange have always kept my invoices in a file for quick reference if needed,they did say to pass on any comments to them if you have a problem with it, I don't send up my invoices that often, about once every four weeks, since they stopped the free envelopes, will be passing comments to the Hillarys web site

Ade

[hereticus]

itsme said:

Right, so Hillarys have come up with this fantastic Idea that from now on we have to give the customer the top copy of the invoice and send the lower part which is the remittance in to head office. So I ask myself, how do we track what work we have done, whether or not we have been paid, and raising a DOR how will we know which blind to DOR without a quick glance at the invoice, among other problems. So, who came up with this idea and it would be great to get anyone's opinion on this and whether or not you think it's going to work! HMMMMMMMM!!!!!

Quite agree - I think this is a disastrous idea and, in addition to your above points, how can we prove that payment has been made in those occasional cases where the sytem fails and accounts / credit control come back to us for evidence of payment.

I guess the first job after each week's delivery will be to get down the local copy shop and photocopy all the invoices so that we have one for our own records - so thats more cost and more time wasted. I certainly wouldn't be happy about running my business without a proper paper trail from order through to payment.

[mendipmagpie]

I have to agree that this is a backward step as far as the agents are concerned. Like most of you I have had to refer to paperwork for queried payments. If necessary I will just scan the invoice,into a file and save to disk ,and add the payment type later,just to cover myself, its cheaper than photocopies Herticus. Unfortunately this will not have the customer signature of satisfaction
The thing I find strange is that I had been banging on about the data protection act for some years before SAM came along, but no one could give me an answer even on who was responsible in Hillarys. I think it also came up in conversation on the other board some time ago. This leads me to think that, as previously mentioned this smells of a cost saving exercise which has not been properly thought through.

MM

[Guest]

mendipmagpie said:

I have to agree that this is a backward step as far as the agents are concerned. Like most of you I have had to refer to paperwork for queried payments. If necessary I will just scan the invoice,into a file and save to disk ,and add the payment type later,just to cover myself, its cheaper than photocopies Herticus. Unfortunately this will not have the customer signature of satisfaction
The thing I find strange is that I had been banging on about the data protection act for some years before SAM came along, but no one could give me an answer even on who was responsible in Hillarys. I think it also came up in conversation on the other board some time ago. This leads me to think that, as previously mentioned this smells of a cost saving exercise which has not been properly thought through.

MM

\\dont you think it maybe so they can protect what they refer to as "their" customers. Think about it, you wont have a copy of address or name or telephone number. Unless you resort to more paperwork and admin like photo copies or such like.
They have thought it through but only the protecting their own intrest side of it, not the agent.

[thelloydgang]

Guest said:

mendipmagpie said:

I have to agree that this is a backward step as far as the agents are concerned. Like most of you I have had to refer to paperwork for queried payments. If necessary I will just scan the invoice,into a file and save to disk ,and add the payment type later,just to cover myself, its cheaper than photocopies Herticus. Unfortunately this will not have the customer signature of satisfaction
The thing I find strange is that I had been banging on about the data protection act for some years before SAM came along, but no one could give me an answer even on who was responsible in Hillarys. I think it also came up in conversation on the other board some time ago. This leads me to think that, as previously mentioned this smells of a cost saving exercise which has not been properly thought through.

MM

\\dont you think it maybe so they can protect what they refer to as "their" customers. Think about it, you wont have a copy of address or name or telephone number. Unless you resort to more paperwork and admin like photo copies or such like.
They have thought it through but only the protecting their own intrest side of it, not the agent.

Hi all

Saw my Core FSM today as was told to post comments/complaints regarding the new style invoice onto the Hillarys Advisor Site.

The web address is www.advisors.hillarys.co.uk. You'll need a password to get onto this site and this is available from [e-mail].

At the moment there's only a couple of comments on there so nothing will be changed unless more advisors comment/complain.

Thanks

Karen )

[magicmonkey]

thelloydgang said:

Saw my Core FSM today as was told to post comments/complaints regarding the new style invoice onto the Hillarys Advisor Site.

what a joke, an utter shambles - now your own fsm can't feedback to hq .

You have to do it yourself on a message board that nobody reads or cares about.

waste, waste, waste

[thelloydgang]

Hi all

Just come of the hillarys forum and see that many of us have posted comments about the proposed new invoices.

What a refreshing change to get a response informing us of what will happen.

We all have until Friday to post or email our comments, these will then be collated and an overall response given to us.

If you're not registered onto the forum yet you can always email a response to [e-mail].

Please all post/email your comments before Friday as if Hillarys receive so many objections a different invoice may be proposed satisfying all parties.

Happy posting!!!

Karen ;D

[Russell]

thelloydgang said:

Hi all

Just come of the hillarys forum and see that many of us have posted comments about the proposed new invoices.

What a refreshing change to get a response informing us of what will happen.

We all have until Friday to post or email our comments, these will then be collated and an overall response given to us.

If you're not registered onto the forum yet you can always email a response to [e-mail].

Please all post/email your comments before Friday as if Hillarys receive so many objections a different invoice may be proposed satisfying all parties.

Happy posting!!!

Karen ;D

Yes I spoke to Jenny Crookes in marketing on Friday re this subject she said much the same thing I also made a few suggestions but as Karen said the more voices the better .Still think they wont change their mind though so I will keep the SAM receipt as a record and write on it payment details then when (not if ) accounts tell me it wasn't payed at least I have some form of proof but more to the point when chasing commission also .

[itsme]

Right everybody, this is a suggestion, silly as it might seem to some, that I have just emailed [e-mail] about the new style invoices. It would be interesting to see if anyone comes up with anything better or improved on what I have suggested. Thanks everyone:

I am really disappointed at this decision about the new style invoices. The newsletter we were sent led us me to believe that for data protection purposes we were not allowed to keep a copy of the customers credit card number on the invoices, there was no specific mention that we could not keep their name and address and copy of the order. As far as I am aware this is not in breach of data protection.

E.G If I was a plumber/electrician/carpenter or whatever, and I was self employed are you telling me that once I have written down a quote to fix someones heating/lighting/woodwork, that I must destroy the customers details. What if the customer comes back to me next month deciding to go ahead with the work? How will I remember who it is without a record of my quotations? WHY SHOULD IT BE ANY DIFFERENT WITH OUR BLINDS BUSINESS?


Well, for a start, the sam users do not need to write the card number down as it gets tapped straight into the SAM device, and secondly we need to have a copy of the invoice for several reasons, as listed below:

To keep track of what we've been paid for when our commission statement comes through
For easy reference when we need to do a DOR so we know which line the blind we are DORing is on
How can we prove that payment has been made in those occasional cases where the sytem fails and accounts/credit control come back to us for evidence of payment

So, a suggestion. Could we not have instead of a triple carbon copy of invoices as present, just a double carbon copy.
The top copy as the new design states it to be and the second copy the same, but without the lower remittance part with the customers card number. It could be that the second copy is a smaller sheet of paper, maybe two thirds the size of the top copy so that when it goes through the printing process it will not transfer the lower part onto the second copy. This way, we continue to have a copy of the customers order, but without any copy of card details.

I think this is a fair compromise and it will make a lot of advisors happier with the new system.

I hope that these suggestions will be taken into consideration.

[Russell]

itsme said:

Right everybody, this is a suggestion, silly as it might seem to some, that I have just emailed [e-mail] about the new style invoices. It would be interesting to see if anyone comes up with anything better or improved on what I have suggested. Thanks everyone:

I am really disappointed at this decision about the new style invoices. The newsletter we were sent led us me to believe that for data protection purposes we were not allowed to keep a copy of the customers credit card number on the invoices, there was no specific mention that we could not keep their name and address and copy of the order. As far as I am aware this is not in breach of data protection.

E.G If I was a plumber/electrician/carpenter or whatever, and I was self employed are you telling me that once I have written down a quote to fix someones heating/lighting/woodwork, that I must destroy the customers details. What if the customer comes back to me next month deciding to go ahead with the work? How will I remember who it is without a record of my quotations? WHY SHOULD IT BE ANY DIFFERENT WITH OUR BLINDS BUSINESS?


Well, for a start, the sam users do not need to write the card number down as it gets tapped straight into the SAM device, and secondly we need to have a copy of the invoice for several reasons, as listed below:

To keep track of what we've been paid for when our commission statement comes through
For easy reference when we need to do a DOR so we know which line the blind we are DORing is on
How can we prove that payment has been made in those occasional cases where the sytem fails and accounts/credit control come back to us for evidence of payment

So, a suggestion. Could we not have instead of a triple carbon copy of invoices as present, just a double carbon copy.
The top copy as the new design states it to be and the second copy the same, but without the lower remittance part with the customers card number. It could be that the second copy is a smaller sheet of paper, maybe two thirds the size of the top copy so that when it goes through the printing process it will not transfer the lower part onto the second copy. This way, we continue to have a copy of the customers order, but without any copy of card details.

I think this is a fair compromise and it will make a lot of advisors happier with the new system.

I hope that these suggestions will be taken into consideration.

Like your ideas .I also wonder what they will do re paper orders ie shutters awnings and roofs as you take lots of credit deposits on these how will they get around that as you must retain a copy for fitting .

[loneranger]

itsme said:

Right everybody, this is a suggestion, silly as it might seem to some, that I have just emailed [e-mail] about the new style invoices. It would be interesting to see if anyone comes up with anything better or improved on what I have suggested. Thanks everyone:

I am really disappointed at this decision about the new style invoices. The newsletter we were sent led us me to believe that for data protection purposes we were not allowed to keep a copy of the customers credit card number on the invoices, there was no specific mention that we could not keep their name and address and copy of the order. As far as I am aware this is not in breach of data protection.

E.G If I was a plumber/electrician/carpenter or whatever, and I was self employed are you telling me that once I have written down a quote to fix someones heating/lighting/woodwork, that I must destroy the customers details. What if the customer comes back to me next month deciding to go ahead with the work? How will I remember who it is without a record of my quotations? WHY SHOULD IT BE ANY DIFFERENT WITH OUR BLINDS BUSINESS?


Well, for a start, the sam users do not need to write the card number down as it gets tapped straight into the SAM device, and secondly we need to have a copy of the invoice for several reasons, as listed below:

To keep track of what we've been paid for when our commission statement comes through
For easy reference when we need to do a DOR so we know which line the blind we are DORing is on
How can we prove that payment has been made in those occasional cases where the sytem fails and accounts/credit control come back to us for evidence of payment

So, a suggestion. Could we not have instead of a triple carbon copy of invoices as present, just a double carbon copy.
The top copy as the new design states it to be and the second copy the same, but without the lower remittance part with the customers card number. It could be that the second copy is a smaller sheet of paper, maybe two thirds the size of the top copy so that when it goes through the printing process it will not transfer the lower part onto the second copy. This way, we continue to have a copy of the customers order, but without any copy of card details.

I think this is a fair compromise and it will make a lot of advisors happier with the new system.

I hope that these suggestions will be taken into consideration.

That would work, but you would end up with a wedge shaped pad.

Why not have a section for card numbers which is filled in on the top copy but have that area on the rest of the sheets as a solid black block or a chequered section which would not show the card number. Kalamazoo have been doing it for years. Just think of an invoice/delivery slip which stops the staff from seeing what the boss is paying for the goods being delivered

[benny]

anyone got any good suppliers of rollers or verts same kind of stuff as hillarys

[magicmonkey]

try wilsons blinds - they sell hillarys stuff cheaper than advisors can + you get it quicker.
more salt in the wound

[brian]

benny said:

anyone got any good suppliers of rollers or verts same kind of stuff as hillarys

Most are better "stuff" than Hillarys, in more ways than one