Tip – Receiver Declare Accounts
What is a Receiver Declare Account?
A receiver declare account is one where the receiver has an arrangement with CHEP and Loscam so that transfers will only be transferred on to their account if the notification to CHEP and Loscam come from them.
There are a few companies who have these arrangements and these include:
- Coles Group – Coles, KMart, Target
- Aldi (CHEP only)
Why do you need to watch them like a hawk?
Receiver declare accounts are one of the biggest problems of pallet hire in Australia. You have to raise a pallet transfer to go with the delivery but CHEP or Loscam will not process the transfer unless the receiver notifies them. This sounds workable but the problem is that there are many instances where the receiver fails to notify the pallet hire company. Some companies have a policy which states that even if they fail to notify the hire company they are not responsible. They state that you have to identify their failure within 6 months otherwise the sender loses the pallets.
Thus the penalty for failing to identify that the receiver has not notified the pallet hire companies is that the sender pays hire forever or until they pay compensation. This is the reason you need eyes like a hawk. You have to watch transfers to receiver declare accounts like a hawk. You have to act as their quality control – this is not the case of one or two missed transfers for there are many instances of receiver declare accounts failing to notify pallet hire companies.
Some carriers have had to incur additional costs by specifically assigning people to monitor transfers to receiver declare accounts.
What can be done to fix this?
The best option is to get rid of receiver declare accounts. This is something which a Code of Conduct for pallets could address. No company would want the responsibility of receiver declare if they were faced with the prospect of paying hire charges back to the original transfer date if they failed in their repsonsibility to notify the pallet hire company of the transfer. In the meantime what we need is for receiver declare accounts to improve their performance for notifying transfers to pallet hire companies.
CHEP and Loscam do try to help by emailing the sender to let them know that the transfer a sender has just sent them is a receiver declare account.
What do you need to do?
Ensure that truck drivers have a pallet docket when they deliver to accounts which require one.
Closely monitor transfers to receiver declare accounts.