GPI 472 – Discover problems and opportunities – take five minutes and review the company’s daily mail.

You need someone to spot problems in the mail that most clerical personnel may not notice or understand. Even if 90% of the company mail is normal invoices and familiar, instruct the person responsible for opening mail to forward all of the other items normally discarded to a supervisor or manager who will look for these problems or opportunities.

Look for these items in daily mail:

1. Past-due notices threatening to cut off service or goods, a sign you have problems in your accounts payable department or, you maybe you have employees buying items and charging them to the company.
2. Unapproved vendor invoices that are received by your accounts payable personnel that do not contain approved internal purchase orders numbers and are only verbally approved by internal employees. Stop this practice quickly.
3. Personal employee mail is received at the company address which may put your firm at risk. Missed statements or bills causing employees fines or additional fees may be blamed on the assigned person opening company mail. Enforce the rule “No personal mail sent to the company address”.
4. Customer checks (payments) mailed by customers to your office address versus your company lockbox as required by your bank agreement for your line of credit (LOC). You want checks to go to a secure lockbox versus sitting in your vulnerable mailbox on the street or in a lobby over the weekend. Instruct your collections personnel to tell customers to forward their payments to the correct remittance address each day. Make sure this address is noted clearly on the face of all invoices.
5. Vendor catalogs, advertising specials and other vendor offers should be reviewed for potential new vendors by purchasing personnel. Alternative cheaper or superior vendors may be having problems offering bids to your buyers who are indirectly tied to contractors. Ask your receptionist who forwards incoming calls which of your buyers do not accept incoming vendor calls or which are notorious for not calling vendors back.
6. Fake company mail delivered to your company addressed to non-existent company names or fictitious persons at your address need to be investigated. See if the company name is registered with your state comptroller’s office. Watch for this type of incoming mail because it is a sign that someone may be using your address as a front. Do a web search on the internet for that company name or person’s name and see if you can locate it to notify them to stop using your address. Search the person’s name plus your address to locate a website containing your company address.
7. Excessive court orders and garnishments for your employees which indicate personal problems outside the workplace. Your firm must process these through payroll by law but human resources needs to be aware of multiple problems coming from outside court systems directed to your payroll department about your employees.
8. Undelivered and returned invoices to customers may indicate fake or false customer orders putting your open receivables at risk. Collections personnel need to immediately follow up when customer address information is wrong in your billing system.
9. Unrequested credit cards and credit card offers need to be destroyed by accounting personnel so they are not abused.
10. Tax bills, statements and deficiency notices need to be addressed immediately by your tax department or accounting staff in order to avoid late fees or penalties assessed by late or lost payments. How were they missed in the first place?
11. Electric and gas bills  copies need to be sent to your company’s utilities broker to check for correct rates and agreed upon fees. This is very relevant in a deregulated state such as Texas.
12. Forwarded mail (mail sent to a wrong or old address and forwarded by the post office) indicates you have not notified your vendors (incoming invoices) or customers (incoming purchase orders or checks). You need to notify them that your office or one of your company’s facilities has moved. Catch these errors by checking incoming sales orders and clearly highlighting your new remittance address on all company invoices.
13. Candidate resumes sent to the office need to be forwarded to the HR department regardless whether the open advertised position is filled or not. Resumes need to be kept on file for a period of time determined by your HR procedures.
14. Vehicle registrations and stickers mailed from the local DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) need to be forwarded to your traffic department or accounting, whichever ensures the company vehicle is inspected, insured, registered and stickered so your drivers will have no problems when pulled over.
15. Bills of lading and signed packing slips sent in by your hired freight companies need to be forwarded to accounts payable to be attached to appropriate freight purchase orders and scheduled loads or billings to substantiate freight charges passed onto customers through company invoices.