What is the difference between "carriage" and "postage and carriage"

What is the difference between "carriage" and ...

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Everything related to delivery of goods inbound and outbound I have posted to "carriage" but I notice that there is a "postage and carriage" account too. 

What is the difference between them please? Also, should I be differentiating types of delivery/postage/courier to different accounts please?

Kind regards

Sammy

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By pawncob
06th Feb 2015 12:21

Depends

It depends on the type of business.

 

Manufacturing costs would normally include "Carriage", as it's  a direct cost.

 

A mail order firm might include it as "Postage and Carriage" as an indirect cost.

 

An accountant would probably use "Printing Postage and Stationery"

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By cap1tana
06th Feb 2015 12:27

The business buys broken return goods from a larger company, so 1) carriage inwards of pallets of goods to be fixed. Then there is 2) delivery of repaired (and sold) goods to the customer.

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By cap1tana
06th Feb 2015 12:32

There seems to be some debate, having read around such as here http://www.book-keepers.org.uk/t43906312/is-it-ok-to-have-the-same-accou... and I am so confused :-/

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By Paul Hawes
06th Feb 2015 12:44

Up to the business

Your carriage costs are cost of sales and carriage income is part of sales so you will still be arriving at the same gross profit figure regardless if you used separate accounts or not. If the business is interested in knowing how much they spend on carriage for inbound/outbound separately then you're best discussing this with your manager.

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paddle steamer
By DJKL
06th Feb 2015 12:59

I tend to treat in two parts

Carriage inwards I  would treat as one head e.g. I have clients who import and the costs of that service/ the agents costs  goes in to carriage inwards to form  part of cost of sales.

On the other hand bags/postage/packaging and carriage outward all goes to a distinct head more akin to a distribution costs. (The actual client is actually a partnership  with a number of shops and accounts are really just sales/cost of sales/ gross profit/overheads, with no distribution cost split.)

There is no way of splitting postage costs between those for goods sold and sent and those for say letters/cheques sent so I put in the same generic nominal  account stationery/paper towels/ tissues/ paper/boxes/carrier bags, tape etc. Some will be used re mail sales, some will be used for counter sales re delicate items and some will cover sending payments to suppliers.

The key is usually to consider the cost/benefit re the possibly more detailed and time consuming analysis to further split Post/Carriage outwards.

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