This is our story.We paid too much for a phone and internet services to our office provider.It was their fault as they issued as an invoice with wrong amount i.e. £540 instead of £420.Therefore we made an overpayment which they confirmed and we requested a refund.6 weeks later they are saying that they cannot adjust current invoice with respect to the £120 credit,neither process a refund.What they are saying is :We have to pay the invoices for the period that relates to overpayment and reflect the correct amount i.e.£420 and they will issue us a credit note of £540.I'm not sure if i grasp the whole idea of credit note,but it seems to me that are offering us virtual money so that our books match their invoices and we have to pay twice for the same service - first £540 and then £420.Am I correct? Can anyone clarify this and give me some hints how this should be solved.Many thanks!
Assuming that you now have (or will have) a credit note for £540... This would then cancel the original invoice for £540, both in your books and theirs. Then they would issue you with a corrected invoice of £420 for the same period and you would need to pay the £420.00
yes,that's what i thought ,however we paid £540 and we will have to pay another £420,so my books will be correct but my bank account not,unless my way of thinking is wrong.We already spent £540 on the service and will have to spend another £420 on the same service.
Why are they asking you to pay another £420?? Have you actually received the £540 credit note from them - if not you need to get them to give you one. Assuming that there are no other outstanding transactions with the supplier, if you enter the 2 invoices and the credit note, and your payment so far of £540, then your account with them should show a £120 overpayment. And their books would show exactly the same (as they should mirror eachother exactly, ideally)
I think you need to speak to them again and also request a statement of your account so you can see it for yourself: There is either something more to this and/ or one of you have misunderstood the situation. Or may be there are other unresolved transactions on your account that you need to clear up.
PS - You mention it's an office provider; it might be that you would have more joy talking to their accounts dept than, say, the building manager.
Definitely do not pay them. They should actually being paying you back the overpayment. You ahve a legal right to it. Threaten to report them to Soca, they will soon pay up!
__________________
Phil Hendy, The Accountancy Mentor
Are you thinking of setting up your own practice or have you set up and need some help?
If so a mentor may be the way forward - feel free to get in touch and see how I can assist you.
thx for your response.We got the credit note(8 weeks from the date the transaction took place) ,but they are saying that this resolves the situation of £120 of overpayment and we think it does not.We already spoke to the head of their credit control ,however they are big company and believe themselves that we should keep quite and do what they say.
Ps Development Manager has no clue what we are talking about:)
In that case, if you have the credit note and it cancels the erroneous invoice, then no it doesn't resolve the overpayment, there should be an overpayment or misallocated amount of £120 sitting somewhere on your account. Ask them what they've done with the £120 overpayment (it should show on their statement... but it might be that you have to request a historical listing of your account, in case they have put it somewhere daft). They should have either allocated the credit note to the erroneous invoice, and your payment to the revised invoice, to get the the £120 overpayment. (Alternatively, they may have allocated your payment to the erroneous invoice and the credit note to the revised invoice, but that would still result in a £120 overpayment, obviously)
I had dealings on behalf of a client with a well known international office provider, and the client had accidentally paid an invoice twice. Instead of leaving the money as an overpayment on the account, one of the office's accounts staff had decided to add it to the client's security deposit, so it didn't show as an overpayment on the client's account. (It wasn't immediately clear what they had done, as their accounts system had abbreviated all the transaction descriptions, too and it was such a large company nobody took personal responsibility) I think I ended up drawing arrows and circles all over their account listings for them, until they finally realised what they had done and corrected it. May be something similar has happened to you.
