Mantis Wrote:
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They have one of the longer payment cycles, but I don't
have a problem with it, and I've never had a
single incorrect or late payment from them.
I don't have a problem with receiving payment, but their terms are a bit sketchy as to exactly when shoppers will receive payment.
Their terms state that they "begin processing checks on the 27th-30th of the month for the prior month's shops". Translation: payment for shops completed in January begin processing on or around February 27th.
Here's where it gets sketchy. The next line reads "Checks are mailed once processing is complete." How about clearly stating how long processing usually takes? A day? 3 days? 2 weeks? 6 years?
Most people would read that and assume that checks would be mailed sometime around the first of the month. I've received checks from SR anywhere between the 5th and 15th of the month, and mail from their office location to my home generally only takes 1 day, possibly 2. In each case, I've received my check the day after it was postmarked.
Here's what gets me: my last check was dated 2/27, but was postmarked 3/9. Now, backdating checks is not out of bounds, but the way in which they did it leads me to believe there's some tomfoolery going on.
My speculative guess is that they picked 2/27 because that's what is stated as the first processing day in their terms, and would give them the convenient excuse of "Well, we began processing when we said we would" if someone were to question it. Like I said, backdating a check isn't unheard of, especially when a company wants to allocate an expense to a certain accounting period. However, 2/27 would be an odd date to start/end an accounting period. It's obviously not the end of a month, if they run their fiscal calendar on calendar months. It's the start of a week, not the end of one, if they run on a week-based fiscal calendar. Unless their fiscal calendar is run on some oddball number-of-days based system, it's unlikely that's the reason.
Even if they did print the check on 2/27, why sit on it until the 8th or 9th (when it was postmarked)? Either you don't have the cash in the account for it to clear (which is bad) or you're drawing out the payment process for some other reason (which may be worse).
SR isn't a bad MSC, but there is a somewhat concerning lack of clarity in their payment process.