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To start with, the business account is not only about paying a better rate. It's relevant for your internal accounting, taxes, etc... You can't just start han
by reificator 6y ago
To start with, the business account is not only about paying a better rate. It's relevant for your internal accounting, taxes, etc...
You can't just start handing out business credit cards to everyone you send to the store, the alternative is to ask employees to pay out of pocket and pinky swear to reimburse them.
Then there's the question of liability. If your business account shipped something, any questions of liability are clear cut and easy to deal with. If a random employee shipped something, who's liable for any issues?
And how about efficiency? Not only are you paying a reduced rate with a business account, but the provider comes and picks up your packages from you on a regular basis. If instead of putting things in the right place and answering the door when the UPS driver comes by, now you're paying however many employees to pick up a bunch of packages, drive over to the closest location, and wait in line. I don't know what the lines are like at UPS right now, but I do know that the USPS lines around me are about 45-60 minutes depending on the time of day. Not to mention that line starts outside in the cold.
And that's all assuming your employee brings 20 packages to the clerk and has no problems shipping them all in the same transaction.
Which means it's possible that your employee(s) didn't do their normal job, got frustrated and cold and risked infection standing in line instead, you paid a premium to do so, and some of your packages didn't get shipped regardless.
- fennecfoxen 6y ago> the alternative is to ask employees to pay out of pocket and pinky swear to reimburse them. Uhh, fwiw, if you tell an employee you'll reimburse them for something they do for your business, it's got a little bit more heft in a court than a "pinky swear."
- reificator 6y agoThanks, I hadn't considered that. What about if you cross your fingers? My post was to point out the absurdity of the claim that a business account with UPS/FedEx is nothing more than a discount. The part you quoted is a joke, and is not to be taken as legal advice. I am not a lawyer, and also IANAL.
- fennecfoxen 6y agoYou're not giving legal advice, you're just... casting aspersions on the process of a business asking for you to file an expense report, for some reason, when it's a perfectly normal thing at many businesses (and one that I have performed hundreds of times myself, because ugh consulting.) Like, you could complain that the reimbursement process is a tedious paperwork-generator, maybe, if you think your other objections aren't enough already?
- reificator 6y agoI really don't understand your position at all, but it seems like you're more upset than I would expect given the context. In good faith I will refrain from joking about expense reports in the future. I did not intend to cause offense, I just saw room for a joke I thought would lighten the mood of the post a bit by making it seem more childish. I'm not trying to demean people who file expense reports or something.
- fennecfoxen 6y agoI was just taken aback by what seemed to be a vague and completely unnecessary “employers can never be trusted and employees are suckers” sentiment in the middle of coherent words. If it was a joke it undermined the serious points.
- kaitai 6y agoIf you have low-wage workers, it simply isn't practical to ask them to float you hundreds of dollars in shipping costs. It's great that as a consultant you can do that. It might be useful to realize that most Americans are in a very different financial position.