Invoice on Delivery, Not Despatch

Most businesses invoice the moment an order leaves the warehouse. It is the natural point in Sage 200: the goods have gone, so the invoice follows. But a parcel that has left your building has not yet reached your customer, and when a delivery fails, goes astray or arrives days late, the invoice gets there first.

That is when the trouble starts. The customer queries a charge for goods they have not received, someone has to take the call, and the finance team may end up raising a return and a credit note to correct an invoice that should never have gone out. It is extra work for you, and a poor experience for a customer who is still waiting for their order.

Tilted Carriers already knows when the goods arrive. For carriers that report tracking, such as DPD, DX, TPN, BJS, Furdeco and Arrow XL, a scheduled task brings their tracking updates into Sage and records them against the order. Where the carrier provides proof of delivery, that is stored too. Anyone in Sage can see where a delivery has got to and when it was completed.

That delivered status can drive your invoicing. We set Sage 200 to raise and post the invoice when the carrier confirms delivery, not when the order is despatched, so the invoice and the goods reach your customer together. A failed delivery is never invoiced, so there is no invoice to reverse. We set it up to suit the way you work, and one of our customers already invoices this way.

Are you invoicing for what you have sent, or for what your customers have received? If you use Sage 200 with outside carriers and would like your invoices to follow your deliveries, talk to us about Tilted Carriers.