Country Agents Owed Pallets

Country Agents

Country Agents

Agent Overview

Many carriers do not have their own depots in regional areas, instead they use agents. These agents often service specific regional areas and provide services to a number of carriers. Sometimes the agent is the only service provider for a regional area.

There are some important considerations when dealing with country agents. If they are the only agent servicing an area then the agent may not wish to comply with all of your requirements, e.g.

  • They may not agree to do monthly pallet counts. It might be difficult for them to do this especially if they provide services for a number of carriers. They are unlikely to keep separate stacks of pallets for each carrier they provide services for.
  • They may not agree to using documentation you specify to them.
  • They may not take empties to a CHEP or Loscam depot, instead they could expect you to collect the pallets.

Given the above it is extremely important that robust procedures and a written agreement are in place. PalletWatch can provide the functionality needed to control equipment going to and from country agents.

Owed Pallet Limit

Carriers may decide to apply a maximum limit that they would like the carrier to abide by. This limit will not prevent PalletWatch from creating a docket to the agent but it will show as a warning on the Owed Equipment report.

The limit is set by doing the following:

  • Go to Data\Trading Partner.
  • Click on Edit against the relevant trading partner.
  • Enter the maximum limit in the Owed Equipment Limit field.

Opening Balance for Owed Equipment

It is important that you set an opening balance for owed equipment for each trading partner who owes equipment or who you owe equipment to.  This opening balance may be obtained from your previous method of tracking owed pallets.  This could be another pallet control system, your transport management system, an Excel spreadsheet or some other source.

To create the opening balance you should do the following:
  1. Go to Create Docket in PalletWatch.
  2. Select Non Hire Move Off if the trading partner owes you equipment or Non Hire Move On if you owe the trading partner equipment.
Sending to Country Agents

Often carriers provide a Manifest to the country agent and this document can be used as the source for creating a Non Hire Move Off in PalletWatch. The Manifest should list all the drops and the number of pallets. The Manifest number can be used as the Docket No. when creating a docket. See the Non Hire Moves topic for information on non hire moves.

Returns from Country Agents

Empty pallet returns from agents can be dealt with in several different ways:

  • The agent may deliver empty pallets back to the carrier’s depot.
  • The carrier may pick up pallets from the agent’s depot.
  • The agent may return the pallets to a CHEP or Loscam depot and dehire them off the carrier’s pallet account.

In the first two cases the entry in PalletWatch should be a Non Hire Move On. The docket number should be the documentation that is received back along with the pallets. This could be the same Manifest number as was despatched to the agent or it could be the agent’s Consignment Note number or some other docket number.

Returning pallets to a CHEP or Loscam depot for Dehire

If the agent returns the empty pallets to a CHEP or Loscam depot then CHEP or Loscam will provide the agent’s driver with a Dehire docket. It is important that this Dehire docket is emailed or delivered to the carrier as soon as possible. The carrier needs to check that its account number has been used and appears on the Dehire docket.

When the carrier’s pallet controller receives the Dehire docket from the agent then the pallet controller needs to raise a Non Hire Move On from the agent to the carrier. The Dehire docket number should be entered in the Reference 1 field of the Non Hire Move On.

Keeping Track of Owed Pallets

Automatic Scheduled Report

It is very important that owed pallet balances are agreed between the carrier and the agent. PalletWatch can send an automatic report to the agent every week showing the transactions and the outstanding balance. The email address for the agent needs to be set against the agent’s site. Ideally email addresses should be emailed to support@palletwatch.com.au and we will set them up for you. You can still enter an email address by doing the following:

  • Go to Data\Trading Partners.
  • Edit the Trading Partner.
  • Click on Edit at the bottom of the form.
  • Enter contact details, including the Contact Email in the relevant Override field.

To set up this automatic report please do the following:

  • Go to Data\Trading Partners.
  • Edit the Trading Partner.
  • Tick the box “Send Weekly Non Hire Moves report.

Owed Equipment Summary Report

You can get a snapshot of owed equipment across all your trading partners by running the Owed Equipment Summary Report. The Owed Equipment Summary Report can be found by going to Reports\Owed Equipment Summary. You can select the agent balances for one of your depots by selecting the relevant depot under the Site field when running the report. Leave this field blank if you want to report on them all.

Owed Equipment Report

You can generate a report showing all the transactions relating to owed equipment for a specific trading partner by going to Reports\Owed Equipment.

Grouping Trading Partners

You can group your agents or trading partners so that the Owed Equipment Report shows a group of agents together. You can assign agents to a group by doing the following:

  • Go to Data\Trading Partners.
  • Edit the Trading Partner.
  • Create or select a Group from the “Report Groups” field.

Unrecoverable Pallets

In your agreement with the agent it is important to agree on what happens if the agent can not recover pallets from a receiver. There should also be an agreement between the sender and the carrier as to what action is to be taken. In some cases the agent is held responsible for any pallets not recovered but generally the problem is directed back to the sender. Some possible options are:

  • Use plain pallets, particularly relevant if delivering to remote areas or to mine sites where the likelihood of getting empty CHEP or Loscam pallets back in exchange.
  • Hand unload.
  • Redeliver and apply a charge.
  • Drop the pallets off and use an IOU docket to record that pallets are owed.

If the pallets cannot be recovered then the agent needs to provide the carrier with where the pallets were delivered to along with a signed IOU docket – this could be a consignment note or other docket which the receiver has been given a copy of. The carrier could then transfer the pallets back to the sender but this would be dependent on the agreement they have with the carrier. Alternatively the carrier could raise an invoice to the sender for the lost pallets. Once this invoice is paid the carrier should consider paying compensation to CHEP or Loscam for the lost pallets.