How ShipCalm collects payments and ensures accounts remain in good standing.
Running operations including fulfillment & logistics is one of the most costly aspects of running any physical product company. Due to the nature of our business, ShipCalm advances lots of costs on behalf of our customers including labor costs, parcel & freight fees, and other hard costs in advance of collecting those funds from our customers.
Invoicing Cycle
ShipCalm provides an invoice to its customers every week which helps our partners to understand both their costs and unit economics on a weekly basis. This is also in alignment with parcel providers such as FedEx, UPS & DHL. Because of the nature of our business, we are not able to provide any invoicing activities on a bi-weekly or monthly cadence and don't currently provide that invoicing style to any customers.
Payment Methods
As a baseline, ShipCalm requires that all customers provide a valid ACH payment method or Credit Card payment method on file. Our preferred payment process is ACH with "Auto-Pay" where we automatically debit your account on the Monday following the week that you received your invoices which is essentially the beginning of the 2nd week after services were performed. This payment methodology minimized costs and reduced the likelihood that the account would be put on Shipping Hold.
Credit Card Payments
To enable credit card payments online or via auto-pay please notify billing@shipcalm.com with your desire to use a credit card to pay your invoices, along with our credit card authorization form. All accounts that are enabled for Credit Card payments will have a 3% Credit Card Payment Convenience Fee applied to all invoices outstanding as well as all new payments moving forward. If you do not wish to be on Auto-pay you will still be able to pay via credit card by using our payment portal link that is provided with every invoice.
International Payments
If you are an international company that can't provide an ACH payment method and would not like to have credit card fees charged, you can still pay on a 7-day Candance via wire. ShipCalm will still require a credit card to be held on file. Wire instructions are provided at the bottom of every invoice or you can email billing@shipcalm.com to get a set of wire instructions.
Required Wire Payments
From time to time ShipCalm may request that a payment be made via wire and by no other methodology. This can be the result of any of the following examples:
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Expediting the release of a Shipping Hold
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History of returned payments for non-sufficient funds
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History of charged back payment or payments
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Final invoice
In addition, there may be other circumstances where ShipCalm requires a payment by wire.
Payment Terms
All accounts unless otherwise agreed to in writing are provided Net 7 payment terms by default. Invoices can be paid online via a portal link. Should the account violate any of our payment policies we may require the account to go on a payment plan until the account is current, auto-pay, or prepayment.
Security Deposits
ShipCalm requires all customers to maintain a security deposit to be used if a customer is unable to pay. When an account is initially set up, ShipCalm estimates 2 weeks of fees to define the required security deposit.
Security Deposit Amount
We update the amount required for a customers security deposits on an ongoing basis. The calculation by default is based on the average 2 weeks of expenses over either a 13-week or 52-week period. There are also times that we may require an Enhanced Security Deposit that is greater than the average 2 weeks of services as outlined in various places in this article.
Security Deposit Review Timing
We review the security deposit amount required for an account on an annual basis to ensure that a customer is not exceeding the average expenses over two weeks. In the first year of service, your security deposit will likely be reviewed sooner than 1 full year as we will validate that the expected spending is in alignment with reality.
In addition to annual renewals, there are a handful of events that can trigger an Account Credit Review which may require ShipCalm to adjust the security deposit requirement mid-year to meet the most recent 2-week spending habits, or potentially require an Enhanced Security Deposit that is above and beyond the 2-week spending habits. Please review the Account Credit Review section below for what triggers these types of events.
Return of Security Deposit
Once an account is closed the remaining security deposit is typically applied to any final invoices. If after the application of the security deposit, there is still a remaining balance this balance is returned to customers via wire, ach or check.
Account Credit Review
From time to time an account will may trigger an ad-hoc credit review that is outside of our annual credit review cycle used for security deposits. There are a number of things that can trigger an account credit review:
- New pricing discounts requested
- Returned payment for non-sufficient funds
- Returned payment due to customer-initiated chargeback
- An account going past-due for a prolonged period
- Initiation of a payment plan or the violation of a payment plan to bring an account current
- Account being placed on Shipping Hold
- Bankruptcy, change of ownership, dissolution, or potential dissolution
The account credit review process considers several things including spending habits, payment behaviors, and adherence to overall payment policies. Based on the findings of our review we may need to adjust adjustment any of the following items:
- Valid ACH or CC payment method on file
- Security deposit amount
- Payment terms
- Auto-payment or prepayment requirements
Should the account credit review find that any of the above items are needed to resolve the account status, ShipCalm reserves the right to keep an account on shipping hold until the required items are addressed.
Shipping Hold for Non-Payment
Placing an account on Shipping Hold is something that we take VERY SERIOUSLY as it can have negative impacts on your business. If an account goes past-due for any reason ShipCalm reserves the right to place the account on Shipping Hold. This will certainly trigger an Account Credit Review as described above. During this time the following will be true:
- Your account will still be accruing weekly fees of any kind
- All of the ShipCalm SLA Dates for your orders will be cleared, only to be recalculated once the account comes off shipping hold. It's important to note that the recalculation will start as of the day/time the account is removed from shipping hold.
Reinstating An Account After Shipping Hold
The following conditions will need to be met so that an account can come off of Shipping Hold:
- The account either needs to become current or work with our finance team to agree in writing to a payment plan
- Any requirements that came as a result of the Account Credit Review described above will need to be met including payment method, payment terms & security deposit modifications
Once these conditions have been met we work diligently to reinstate the account in real-time but it can take as much as 24 hours before the account is fully removed from Shipping Hold in our systems.
Withholding Payments For Billing Disputes or Credit Requests
ShipCalm provides a structured credit request process for fulfillment delays, errors, or believed billing inaccuracies. This process which is clearly outlined in our knowledge base can take time. During this time it is still your responsibility to pay all invoicing in full including any invoices that are in dispute unless a short pay waiver is requested and approved.
Short Pay Waiver
In the event a dispute is large (Typically over $1,000) a special short pay waiver can be requested. To request this waiver you can simply email billing@shipcalm.com, describe the issue and the amount you believe you should be credited on any given invoice. Once you have sent the email you can short-pay the invoice in question by the amount you believe you we overbilled by or are owed for service issues.
Resolving Disputes
ShipCalm never adjusts invoices, instead, we provide credit memos that offset the balances on an account once an investigation is completed and approved. In this way, the account could end up with either a negative balance that will simply be applied to future invoices or a situation where the credit memo issued will be applied to the oldest invoices on the account including any short-paid invoices under a Short Pay Waiver described above.