High costs? A lot can be gained on packaging | PackControl
It’s difficult to capture reusable load carriers in an administration. But as their use - and their value - increases a comprehensive packaging registration system should be an integral part of your financial administration. A well-thought-out system ensures lower packaging costs and offers important strategic and financial opportunities.
Packaging registration: you don’t have the time, the people or the system (more on the latter later). Many companies don’t really regard it as a full-fledged part of their financial administration, although a balanced packaging registration can result in significant cost reduction.
Because of their increased use, nowadays the value of reusable packaging items circulating in companies often turns out to be higher than that of the products transported in them. These are (sometimes huge) seemingly uncontrollable costs, which can, however, certainly be made manageable.
The value of reusable packaging can be many times higher than the products you sell. Use a comprehensive packaging management system to keep costs under control.
Upon return, a fair number of crates turn out to be damaged. Your customer says 'that's how I received them' and submits a claim for damages – six months after receipt – to try to get his deposit back. Had it concerned your finished product, such a late claim would at least have met with raised eyebrows at your finance department. When it's about packaging we sigh 'that's just the way it is', as our financial systems are simply not designed for it.
When matching balances, your counterparty turns out to have far fewer crates in storage than you might expect based on the transfers made. Where did those crates go? Were they never delivered? Have more items been returned than were on the receipts? Or have they been stolen?
Your forwarder collects CC-containers from several customers. A full load comes in, but who exactly do they come from? The number of trolleys in the truck don’t add up to the numbers on the driver’s receipts. What happened? With whom do you settle the costs? And from whom do you recover the damage?
If things like these happened just once in a while, they would remain manageable. But if thousands of crates or trolleys are rotating each day, costs add up very quickly. In addition, due to uncertainties you often keep considerably more packaging items in stock than necessary. An extra expense on top of already high packaging costs, which you could have prevented had you had an accurate administration and management reports that enabled full control of values and numbers.
Registration of reusable packaging is often still done in separate Excel sheets. Plus you may have a binder of packing slips and somewhere someone keeps a list of special agreements. And because it's not a priority, packaging registration is often put off until someone has time to update the data. But by that time it’s too late to check on which date that pile of folding crates arrived, half of which were damaged.
The examples above could all have been prevented with a functioning system. In less time than you’re used to.
In case of damages, it is important for recipients to know they must report these within a set period of time. By ensuring goods are checked upon delivery and claims are reported immediately, you prevent long-term discord over responsibilities and culpability.
If numbers on packing slips are matched with reality directly upon dispatch and receipt, deviating balances can be almost ruled out. By instantly registering numbers and balances discussions about numbers quickly become a thing of the past. Also theft can be detected much faster. Because if you know exactly how much you should have in stock, you will notice the differences faster.
When reusable packaging – filled or empty – is transported by a forwarder, it is important to properly register what is picked up or offloaded where. A comprehensive packaging registration system allows for easy and quick scheduling of shipments and returns. It lets you sign off shipments and match balances with, for example, pooling companies. Counterparties know who has taken what, where it is now and with whom settlement must take place.
It can be very complex to use Excel and a lot of paperwork to keep track of which items are where, who is responsible and with whom costs must be settled. Things can quickly go wrong, especially when the designated employee is absent due to vacation, illness or a new job.
Keeping records in your existing business (TMS, ERP or CRM) systems also often turns out to be too complicated, as these systems are not equipped for processing packaging transfers. They were designed for sales, purchases and perhaps rent, but cannot process the unavoidable exceptions and special agreements that come with reusable packaging. So the folder or file containing the special instructions still remains on your desk.
Truly complete registration of packaging is now possible. The new PackControl packaging registration software lets you register quantities and values of all reusable packaging. You automate all special agreements with customers, suppliers, pooling companies and forwarders. Balances are automatically matched, deposits are settled correctly and you quickly settle damage within the PackControl software.
Would you like to see for yourself how you can speed up and optimize your packaging registration with PackControl? How PackControl helps you reduce your packaging costs and do business in a truly sustainable way? Schedule an appointment with us now, for a free, non-binding PackControl demo.