On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 13:31:27 GMT, Ronald Raygun
wrote:

Peter Saxton wrote:

On Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:40:10 GMT, Ronald Raygun
wrote:
Peter Saxton wrote:

Much more work than having a receipt for payment and a receipt for the
letter.

That's not at all clear. Getting and filing two copies of some documents
in two places is also work which adds up. Most of the time this double
work is unnecessary: Out of all the recorded delivery letters you have
ever sent, how often have you had to dig out the proof of posting in
order to produce it? Not very, I'd say. And then it would not have
taken not very long to find it in the accounts file, almost certainly
much less than what you get if you add up all the time wasted filing
extra copies which never need to be consulted.

Most of my dealings are with Companies House and HMRC so over 50% of
the time I have to refer to the proofs of posting. These organisations
are in a chaotic state due to the desire to keep their snouts in the
trough rather than have a clue what they are supposed to be doing.

Fair enough. I concede that if the expected referral rate is much higher
than insignificant, then the only sensible thing is to duplicate the
document so that you have one copy in the letter file and one in the
receipts file.

Even better - get the Post Office to do the sensible thing.

There's been stories about Postmasters (?) being accused of diverting
money with counter accusations of the required software getting the
numbers wrong. I wonder whether my problem is related?

I merely felt that if the referral rate were low, the time saved by not
duplicating them (accumulated over a largish number of occurrences)
might exceed the extra time spent finding them when needed.

Your statement seems to be made without any analysis of the time spent
putting two documents in two different places as opposed to putting
one document is one place and then going from one file and finding the
relevant document in another file.

No it wasn't, I did think it through properly. You have one document
and put it in the file where all the receipts are kept for accounting
purposes, having made the entry for that transaction in the computer.
Of course you write the computer system transaction number on each
filed receipt, and keep them in that order in the file.

Having found the letter in the letter file, you know the date. You
look up on the computer what postage receipts there are near that
date. This takes only a few seconds to give you the transaction number
(or a small selection of them) under which the receipt may be found
in the receipts file. This is a little contorted, but not much for
a task only needed a couple of times a year.

I don't keep my accounts in that detail. What I do is keep a drawer
for every month's documents. At the end of the month I make piles by
types of expenditure. Some larger invoices I enter on a spreadsheet
separately and but smaller receipts (proof of payment, if you prefer)
are grouped by type of expenditure and whether VAT is charged. I may
have 20 receipts for postage so I total them up, enter the month, type
of expenditure and total on a petty cash voucher and staple them
together. I then enter the details as one line on my spreadsheet.

If you need to do it more often, say a couple of times a month, there
is still a time saving possible if it takes longer to duplicate the
document and attach one copy to your copy of the letter than simply to
write the transaction number on the copy letter. Then when you need to
find the document you can bypass the computer lookup and go straight
to the right place in the receipts file.

As you can see, going from one file to another and finding documents
is much more effort than simply putting one receipt in an accounts
file and pinning one to the letter.

I want to be pedantic - or, more realistically, correct.

But to claim this document is not a proof of payment would be incorrect.

So if you bought stamps separately (and obtained a receipt for payment
of those stamps at that time) and then handed the stamps over would
this document showing the receipt of the letter for the £1.14 priced
service show a different price for the service? I think not. Then you
would actually have two receipts (you say of payment) which totally
more than £1.14 - one for the stamps and one for the proof of delivery
service.

Indeed you would, but this last paragraph of yours does not address what
I wrote immediately above it, so I don't know what point you're trying to
make. Clearly the proof of payment for the £1.14 service would still be
part of a dual-purpose document acting also as proof of posting, which
you would still need to duplicate yourself, so there is no advantage to
paying the bare postage element separately.

Ideally you'd want to pay for the whole thing (including the £1.14 service)
with pre-bought stamps. I don't know if this is possible but I see no
reason in principle why it shouldn't be. You would then be given a proof of
posting (which you misleadingly refer to as "receipt of the letter") which
shows no amount, because it would not be a receipt, it would just be a proof
of posting.

I'll see what I can do about stamps. The problem is getting the right
collection of stamps given the regular price increases.