Selling to government organisations

[dipmicro]

Had an order from Royal Military College from Kingston, ON for approx $150. Talked to the procurement person, he promised their billing dept would get back to me with check and I naively thinking since it's a reputable organisations, released the order.

Well guess what, 2 weeks passed and no payment. So I sent polite email today but would like to know what you guys think about selling to government agencies. It seems to me they are more trouble than worth, I have about 6 emails about this order, first they requested all kinds of information to add me to the "approved vendor list" so I sent them $0 invoice, then they faxed paper order with 20 lines, some of them sub $1 even though I told them I would accept faxed POs with no small lines only.

Seems the government is one of the worse customers.

[canadaspatchking]

Hmmm Gov't Depts can be some of the best and some of the worst clients. It really depends on the individual and organization you deal with as it does with most clients. But the Feds add an extra layer usually.

Some departments only deal with vendors that are registered and approved by PWGSC or another department over-seeing financial matters.

Also, the Feds in particular do _NOT_ like to pay with PayPal and I you attempt to sell to them and tell them this say goodbye to 95% of your Fed sales. If you have a merchant account with someone other than PayPal you might be alright. If you want payment by cheque before shipping expect to wait 4-6 weeks for a payment to be processed and sent.

But, if you get in with a few departments they are usually pretty loyal and make for a good base for sales. Just ensure you give them great customer service and fair prices as you would for any other client.

[dipmicro]

It turns out they inserted the payment into their system on August 29 and apparently it takes several weeks for the check to get mailed out. They "forgot" to mention that before the payment. Not a big deal, it was a small order anyway. Will see how this works out. If all their orders will be like this one, then I will back out. If they become loyal customer like you say they might, I will put up with some abuse 🙂

[coxengines]

We sell to schools, same bureaucracy.

We ship right away and wait for payment (4-6 weeks). No big deal; they are good for it.

Bernie

[dipmicro]

That explains where our taxes go. Why to do something simple when we can generate tons of paperwork around it. I wonder how many people were involved in this $150 purchase (after tax) and how much time they spent.

And even if they generate so much paperwork, when it comes up to look up some records, they are so messy nothing can be found. Well, except Revenue Canada, they never loose any records and always find everything.

[mmarway]

When I sell to the military it's 4-6 weeks, but it does come in.

[femmefan1946]

It's so complicated for the bureaucrats to set up a relationship with a seller, that they will be very loyal once you land them.

Here in Ottawa we deal with a few govt departments but we have the benefit that the buyer can walk into the store pick up the item and pay with the departmental credit card.

The RCMP is a constant buyer of handheld blacklights , used for identifying counterfeit bills.

If you have a merchant account, by all means ask to be paid that way. The buyer is usually able to give you the number or the card immediately. Then the paperwork is their problem.

When I was booking travel, most public servants would put the costs on their own cards and then claim it back after the trip, rather than try to have the Finance division pay in advance. Tnings would get tense after a trip if the reimbursement did not come through before the cc bill.