Beware the hand written or "word" invoice.....

By Kelsey Miller - DelayPay

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Even though the digital accounting packages are more widespread than ever you still come across plenty of handwritten invoices when it comes to trading ag stuff like second hand machinery, stockfeed and of course livestock.

At DelayPay, we handle hundreds of invoices each month. They come in all shapes and sizes, but one thing is for sure each time I see a handwritten one my antenna goes up.

Why you may ask?...well I reckon at least once or twice a month a supplier of ours writes or types their bank details out incorrectly. Maybe the numbers are around the wrong way or maybe a digit is missing or maybe they just remembered it wrong. It happens more often than i ever expected and I have seen it on invoices from $5K to $200K so we are not talking small amounts of cash.

The tricky thing is, when you pay money to the wrong account, there is no guarantee you will see it ever again so the risk of things going wrong is very real.

The good news is you can manage this risk with a simple step, call the supplier and get them to either send you a screenshot of their bank account details or at the very least insist that they open their internet banking while you read back their account number. This simple step has saved DelayPay and our customers from a red face moment on many occasions.

So with harvest approaching trading rule one oh one (yes even more important when you're in a hurry) is to double check that number when you're doing a private sale and a handwritten or typed invoice comes your way, it will save you plenty of heartache (and often as importantly) time later on!