tip for band directors: how to get dropped by a repair shop

[bloke]

> The entire group of repaired instruments was delivered back to the school a full two weeks prior to the beginning of band camp.
> The $3000 repair invoice payment is three weeks past due. (also: The school system pays net 45, rather than the customary net 30.)
> email to to band director: "Is there something more you need from us in order to pay this invoice?"
> response from the band director: "Please send me another copy of the invoice."

[arpthark]

Maybe if you get lucky they'll pay it twice.

[Dents Be Gone!]

I agree, guys. This is the way to go.

[BopEuph]

Is the invoice digital? I would have dug up the original email with the invoice in my sent folder, and forwarded it back to the band director.

[bloke]

Things are probably done differently where you are.

I can tell you from 1st hand experience that ‘round these parts band directors don’t pay invoices. Business offices pay invoices. Businesses that supply goods or services submit invoices to business offices to get paid. If a business tries to submit an invoice to a band director, that invoice is forwarded to the district business offices. The band directors are just employees of the district and have no power or authority to pay businesses for goods or services.

Asking for another copy of an invoice sounds like a band director might be trying to help by re-forwarding the invoice to a business office asking them again to pay it.

Unrelated side note: 30+ years ago the road rep for a school music supplier tried to tell me I’d better not do business with any other shop or they would stop calling on me. They were the big shop in the state and liked to pull all sorts of shenanigans. I stopped what I was doing, looked her square in the eye, and told her to never set foot in that band room again. The mothership downstate couldn’t call and apologize fast enough when they got wind of it. By that time another shop had backfilled and their shop had lost all the repair and rental business in the entire district which encompassed the entire county. What that road rep didn’t realize was that, while new to that teaching job, I wasn’t new to the business and I had both done her job and worked in repair, too. Tales from the long, plastic hallway…

all the same, here...
We suspect that the band director never turned the invoice in to the school system's business office, but only told us that the quote was approved.
Normally, that band director notification is accompanied by a p.o., but - as this director had grown up patronizing our (former) brick-and-mortar, we were hesitant to make an issue of the lack of that having been furnished, and took their word. Payment (even though the system specifies a particularly long remuneration period of 45 days) was due 25 days ago, based on invoice dating and delivery...
...and yes, too may road rep's are crooks, and yes, I strongly suspect that crooked reps' store-owners know all about it - which makes them crooks as well. To go one step further, band directors - who accept kickbacks from rep's - are subject to dismissal and possible imprisonment (any school system, anywhere).

>>> I do NOT AT ALL suspect this particular band director of any wrongdoing (but only commenting on your only-slightly-straying-from-the-topic comments). I (simply) suspect them of a bit of carelessness-based negligence...carelessness which creates hardships with our small private-sector business, as we don't receive regular paychecks from government...and are only paid when and for what we do, create, or competitively sell, rather than any sort of guaranteed "salary" and "benefits".

me...??
I have plenty to do, but am just as willing to repair beat-up school stuff as anything else...but expect band directors (who must turn in invoices and indicate to school bookkeepers or board financial secretaries that merchandise/work has been delivered...AS WELL AS making sure that purchase orders are created) to care about us being paid JUST AS MUCH AS they care about getting their stuff or their services.

[Dents Be Gone!]

I agree, guys. This is the way to go.

[bloke]

Having talked (begging confidentiality) with the school's (nice/understanding) financial sec'y...This may be "band booster" money - whereby the booster parents OK'ed the expense, and all that needs to happen is for the boosters to (per rules) hand the money to the individual school, and the individual school issues the check.

This would completely explain how the head band director approved the repairs (sans P.O.)

The ASSISTANT band director signed the original/paper invoice (head band director was out running errands - prior to band camp), so (if this is the case) I tend to track it back to that assistant person (possibly having allowed it to be covered up with a bunch of other papers, ie. "losing" it...thus it never having been taken to a booster meeting for payment to the school).

still...If a piece of paper - handed to me - was something on which someone's else livelihood depended, I don't believe I would be so cavalier.

This is not just some invoice for "fifty bucks", etc...