Billing that’s simple and straightforward
It’s probably no surprise to you that being the UK’s number one coupon services provider means the experts at Valassis must be pretty good at maths (not to mention balancing their chequebooks). This numerical talent comes in handy when reconciling around £400 million annually for our customers
So you understand how we bill the way we do and why, here’s a short summary of the process that’s set in motion when a consumer redeems your coupon:
1) The retailer fulfils the coupon offer for the consumer at the Point-of-Sale
2) The retailer submits the coupon to Valassis
3) Valassis processes the coupon and pays the retailer
4) Valassis invoices you
5) You pay Valassis
But there’s considerable detail hidden in these five steps that ensure sufficient funds are available to pay retailers and billing is accurate. However only one detail holds the key to the success of the whole process:
Rolling deposits
For obvious reasons, Valassis cannot fund payments to retailers out of its own pocket. They would have to be bottomless to do that, so instead we work on zero cost averaging terms. That is, you pay us a rolling monthly deposit to ensure redeemed coupons can be paid for.
Every month you’ll receive an invoice for this deposit based on the volume of coupon redemptions in each campaign in the previous month. If you have redeemed less coupons than forecast, you are credited back the difference. If you have redeemed more, you are invoiced the difference.
Your bill will show the following information:
Month 1 only
Valassis Service Fee
Face value of coupons actually redeemed
Trade handling allowance
Postage
VAT (calculated on Service Fee and Postage only)
Rolling deposit for next month estimated from this month’s actual redemptions
Month 2 and subsequent months
Valassis Service Fee
Face value of coupons actually redeemed
Trade Handling allowance
Postage
VAT (calculated on Service Fee and Postage only)
Difference between estimated and actual costs for month 1, credited or debited from the current deposit.
Rolling deposit for next month estimated from last month’s redemptions
If your financial system can’t cope with rolling deposits, we institute a holding deposit instead.
The amounts of rolling deposit or holding deposit we hold vary depending on the payment terms we agree. Longer payment terms mean a bigger deposit because more money is needed to cover the additional payments to retailers over the extended period of time.
For more information on any aspect of billing and the financial background details to a campaign, call the Valassis maths whizzkids on 01536 400123
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