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| Category: Accounting & Finance |
Date published: February 14, 2005 |
Bill for a penny? Repeatedly, bill for a penny? The company needs a new bookkeeper, maybe?
My youngest son started up his own business in 2004. Since cash flow was limited, he used a credit card to purchase a costly piece of technical equipment that turned out to be defective and immediately exchanged it for another.
Now, wouldn't you think the cost of exchange would work out to be an EVEN exchange? Evidently not in the eyes of this company...the second one cost a penny more...yup... one single little copper penny more. For seven months straight my son has received a bill for this penny.
At first, we considered alerting the company of this discrepancy. After all, the defective item was paid for in full with the credit card. Surely its replacement would also be paid in full. We decided the billing was too foolish to bother with and disregarded it.
For seven months and climbing, paper has been used in the process of billing for this penny, cost of ink, stamps and envelopes used to send them add up to a good amount of change. We thought of further costs, the expenses in labor incurred by the post office to sort and deliver this piece of mail each month. If several companies are silly enough to bill for a penny, this could add up to many man-hours paid for delivering what I now consider JUNK MAIL. All this money in labor costs and materials to retrieve a penny.
Now, if my son were to pay this penny, this penny not owed, it would cost him the price of a check, plus a service charge, a stamp and an envelope. All this to write a check in the amount of a penny... a penny not owed. Put the penny in an envelope and send it? Are you kidding? Never put CASH in the mail!
At first we were outraged at the billings, they seemed so silly, but now we're getting a kick out of seeing this bill come in the mail each month. We're fully expecting to see a late fee added one of these months. The next bill may be for a penny plus a tenth of a penny charged as late fee. Anyone have any ideas on how we would pay that? I'm trusting this failure to pay this penny won't ruin my son's credit. Perhaps the company doing the billing will go bankrupt if my son doesn't pay...why else would they bill for a penny...a penny not owed?
I did bookkeeping in a few of my past jobs. When doing the monthly billing, I would instruct the computer to print out bills for anything exceeding a dollar. Now, if a dollar is too much for a company to overlook, than I would certainly have instructed it to print out bills exceeding a penny.
This bookkeeper is penny wise and dollar foolish. I'll bet she used to sing that old song that I did as a child. "Old lady witch, fell in a ditch, picked up a penny and thought she was rich."
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