SGC now wants acess to your bank accounts in order to send you EFT payments, otherwise you face a .05% of the invoice as a fee for mailing a manual paper check.
If that is not the most messed up policy I do not know what is.

First, a % of the invoice??? Even a flat fee per check could be understood and agrued, but a % of the invoice??? Guess we should do the same and charge SGC a % of each invoice for a manual processing fee as we have to manually enter customer data into our system, unlike LYNX and others that can EDI dispatch to our software, saving us most of the data input.

Second, why would any business owner give their competitor direct access to deposit and withdraw funds as they see fit from your business accounts?? I can't believe any ins. co. would allow that to happen.

Maybe I am missing the boat on this one, but it seems like the final nail in the coffin for few invoices we process thru the SGC network. Finally 100% network free?? woohoo !!!!

I brought that .05% thing up on paperchecks several weeks ago and no one had heard anything about it. So I see it's getting around. I do believe it's safe though, they only have access to "Deposit" they can't see your account or anything like that, or deduct monies, just deposit it. It's all handled through the Federal Reserve Bank I think. I signed on at the first of the year, and I can tell you the average turnaround on invoices submitted correctly the first time is about 14-17 days. Now that is an improvement, over the 30-45 days we were waiting. You have to weigh the pro's and con's and go with your gut I guess.

They threatened us all w/that .05% deduction back in June I think it was...was spose to take effect 8/12/06. I've received at least ten checks so far with no deduction...not sure what happened. Probably a legal issue otherwise why wouldn't they?

- Go Louise - how do they handle refunds if they cannot withdraw funds??? Do they simply short your next EFT payment? I wonder if Farmers would give State Farm access to their account? Or maybe I will tell SGC I will give them access to mine when they give me access to them in order to charge them my new "manual processing fee" for entering customer data into my computer in order to bill them EDI, which of course saves them time and money.

- Glassgod - they are now stating a Nov. 2nd 2006 start date.

Haven't had that situation arise as of yet, but I would think yes. Or they have the option to simply request that we return any money they feel was overpaid. All I know is the contract I signed read "To Deposit Funds For Claims Submitted", no one can deduct money without your EXPRESS permission, except the bank of course when you make a mistake LOL. Plus I called my bank and verified that they would not be able to draw or withdraw, or take credits however you want to put it. Like I've said we've been on the EFT system with SGC & Lynx for almost a year, and the only thing that has changed is the amount of time to turnaround an invoice. Thats a big plus here, don't know bout the rest of ya, I'm southern so that gives me the right to drop the last letter in certain words, haven't figured out how to stretch out the first syllable yet so I can truly type with a southern accent.

JUST AN IDEA REAGRDING THIS ISSUE. IF YOU DO ALLOW EFT PAYMENT AND/OR WITHDRAWS WHY NOT PUT THEM ON A SEPERATE ACCOUNT NUMBER AT YOUR BANK. OUR BANK HAS ONLINE ACCESS AND I CAN DO IMMEDIATE TRANSFER FROM ONE ACCOUNT TO THE OTHER. THIS WAY ALL OF MY AUTOMATIC PAYMENTS AND WITHDRAWS ARE ON A SECONDARY ACCOUNT. SO EVEN IF SOMEONE SOMEHOW GETS THAT ACCOUNT NUMBER AND THEY TRY SOMETHING BAD IT IS ONLY A MINIMAL AMOUNT OF FUNDS THAT THEY CAN TRY TO SEE/GET OR WHATEVER ELSE.

BY THE WAY I DO THE SAME THING WITH MY PERSONAL ACCOUNTS.

THIS WAY THE ACCOUNT NUMBERS YOUR ARE GIVING OVER THE PHONE ON FAXES AND OVER THE INTERNET ARE NOT THE MOST IMPORTANT ONES.

CCC
no one can withdraw funds from your account unless you sign an agreement to allow them. if they do itis the same as using a credit card without authorization. plus they can't check your account balance or anything else, just deposit.

You are all very smart indeed!!! Glad to have such good input on this forum.

Actually we were just duscussing these matters, and have decided to do the exact things you mentioned. Seperate accounts, maybe even a different bank, which we were looking into anyway.

Last question, do you receive a monthly statement as to the transactions from LYNX/SGC or do you just mate the payments to the data provided on the LYNX/ SGCnetwork websites that show payments?

Obviously, I do not do A/R here very often, so most of these questions are coming from that department.

Ok, I have a question in all of this....

Are you able to do the EFT without signing the network contract?

As far as I know, you have to be a participant of the SGC network to have the electronic funds tranfered to your bank. However, I am not a participant of SGC, (we are one of those forsaken non-approved shop!) but I still am able to send in my invoices on the SGCnetwork.com site enabling me to avoid paying any manual invoice charges or EDI charges. The checks seem to get processed quicker also. Those using EDI for sending Safelite invoice should consider just using SGC site instead. I know that when I used GTS services in the past, we were still charged I think 30 or 50 cents by GTS per invoice sent EDI through them, where as SGC is completely free.

Mark1-- I believe the answer to your question is no.. check out their website regarding signing up for EFT. Here is a link:
http://www.sgcnetwork.com/eft_terms.jsp

I have been real busy last few days, but WOW, all the DT soap opera stuff,, whew! Anyway I am wondering if it is legal for sgc to force this eft thing, like they tried before with that 10- 15 fee that got snuffed out very quickly and sgc was made to pay those fees back. And if it's a 5% for entire invoice that would mean they are profiting off tax too,,, hmmmm I don't know,,, But it makes sence if you have to do this ,do it with a seperate account!! we'll see

CCC...the network does not provide "statement" services although your bank may be willing to send you daily or weekly faxes or emails regarding monies deposited. SGC sends me email notices of payments which include invoice#, amount of deposit, electronic check no for reference, and date of course, you have to request this as an additional service when you sign up. To my knowledge Lynx does not offer this service, but I really haven't asked or checked into it since payments are easier to locate on their website than was SGC, SGC was easy on regular on time paymnets to find but if the invoice or referral were/are more tahn 30 days old you have to do an advanced search by changing dates, or on supplemental payments, like leaving off the labor or something. I've had no problems, and the poster above who stated they cannot see your account is absolutely correct. They have no acccess to your account or account info, they just make deposits through the Federal Reserve Bank. It's no different than having your mortgage or insurance, etc., set up for monthly deductions from your account.

WHAT, refunding the $$$ deducted for paper invoices, I've only had one and it was recent, they took $13.50 off my invoice price for faxing a paper invoice, then told me it was wrong because my urethane product code and description didn't match those crazy numbers they use on their website. I told them no it doesn't, it reflects the actual product we used including lot and date as required. I don't do my paper invoices according to their product codes since they never see my paper invoices, they paid me without me changing my invoice.

hey do you send invoices in via EDI? Do you realise how expensive it is to have somone manually process your invoice..