Customer Relationships – what are “terms of trade?”
There are a multitude of small business transactions carried out daily without a piece of paper being signed. These are small exchanges where the goods or services are provided and payment is made at the same time. In most cases, these transactions pass without event. There may be instances where the product has a fault or the consumer believes the product does not meet its advertised standard. The Trade Practices Act provides the legislative tool to manage these instances when they arise.
At PeopleHub, most of our clientele are either providing a service at a discounted price in return for the consumer guaranteeing their custom for an extended period of time (for example a gym membership) or alternatively they have provided a physical product and are collecting payment for this product over time (for instance a coffee machine). These long term customer relationships, while also covered by the Trade Practices Act, generally involve some form of contract or terms of trade.
What are terms of trade you might ask? It is simply a contract between you and your customer which sets out the rules for the purchase of the goods or services. It spells out the obligations of each party
The unofficial top 5 tips for starting and growing a business
As PeopleHub enters its adolescence as a business, we thought we’d reflect on some of the key things that have got us to this stage and share them with you to assist you in your business.
The mechanics of starting a business are well published on several Australian government sites. So rather than reproduce some already excellent information and advice, we’d thought we’d provide you with our top five considerations when starting a business.
- Do something you love – This is one old chestnut that gets trotted out by everybody who has written a motivational or self-help book. It is almost a cliché, but the simple fact is there is no such thing as “Mondayitis” if you are doing something you believe in and are passionate about. In all honesty, PeopleHub was not founded to be a payment business, we are passionate about helping small business and by providing a reliable and flexible direct debit solution we are achieving exactly what we set out to.
- Map out your business model – I cannot believe how helpful this is to a start up. The business model explains how you take the inputs to your business, convert them into a product
Avoiding the pitfalls of direct debit (Part 1)
While it may seem strange for a payment company to spell out the risks of direct debit, we believe it important to provide a balanced view of some of the difficulties that can arise. By understanding some of these issues, your business will be able to better navigate the traps of what is otherwise an excellent method for collecting your regular payments.
The first and most obvious issue with direct debit is that the account you are attempting to debit may have insufficient funds. This is logical given direct debit is a biller initiated transaction; it is not possible to know whether sufficient funds exist prior to debiting the account. Not only does a default require some action from you, it can also mean your customer has incurred a fee from their financial institution.
As a business there are several things you can do to reduce this risk, but they all essentially relate to communicating with your client:
- Ensure it is clear in the contract when payments will be debited and then provide a copy of that agreement to your client for their future reference,
- Send reminder messages to your client when a payment is about to be debited,
- Provide