I'm three weeks into trying to collect utility bills from a 320-location restaurant chain and it's chaos. Some bills come from corporate, some from individual managers, some locations have never sent bills before. Half are PDFs, half are paper scans, some are photos taken with phones. Anyone have tips for streamlining the bill collection process on large portfolios?
Collecting bills from 300+ locations - nightmare logistics
Priya, you need to establish one point of contact at corporate and make them responsible for collection. Don't deal with 300 individual locations - that way lies madness. Corporate should have a facilities or accounting person who can coordinate with all sites. Also provide very specific instructions on bill format and timeframes.
Barbara's absolutely right about centralized collection. I also create a simple spreadsheet template with location name, account number, and bill period columns. Makes it easier to track what you've received and what's still missing. Send weekly status updates to corporate showing exactly which locations haven't responded yet.
Thanks both! I think I made the mistake of trying to work directly with individual locations. Going to re-route everything through their facilities director. Warren, the tracking spreadsheet is a great idea - I've been trying to keep it all in my head which clearly isn't working with this many locations.