A month is four reorders, not one splurge
TradePro describes a 10% rate when spend is over £1,000 a month, on top of a base rate of 5%. The terms also treat £1,000 a month as the minimum to keep the discounted pricing. A desk that hears “ten percent” and places one huge order, then buys nothing for three weeks, has not built the habit the account is for. The account is for trade businesses that reorder. A weekly reorder list is how the lines stay the same. This note is how those lines add up.
Add the week up in goods value before VAT, because that is also how the free delivery threshold is counted: over £50 ex VAT. Delivery itself is not a clever way to inflate spend. The goods are the spend. Tape cases, strapping coils, stretch film, cartons and the disposables you actually use are the spend. A one-off pallet of a product you do not use, bought to cross a line, is stock you will trip over. It counts as spend. It is still a bad buy.
If four ordinary weeks do not reach £1,000 ex VAT, the honest position is the 5% base, for as long as the terms allow a rate at all, not a fabricated fifth order. Read the trade rate on repeat orders beside this. The TradePro page and the terms are the documents that set the figure. This article is only how to look at your own weeks against that figure.
What to include when you add the weeks up
Include every trade order placed in the month, not only the standing tape line. A mid-month top-up of stretch wrap counts. A carton order for a busy week counts. Food packaging and carrier bags count if they were bought on the account. They are still different lists operationally, as the weekly guide says, but they are the same account financially. Do not keep a private second checkout for half the supplies and then wonder why the month looks short.
Do not include a quote you did not place, or a basket you abandoned. The spend is orders. Do not include VAT in your own running total if you are comparing it with a figure that was stated ex VAT. Mixing the two is how a month that felt “about a thousand” is short. Keep the confirmation or the invoice line and add the goods totals.
Returns reduce the sense of the month even when the paperwork takes a few days. A case sent back because it was the wrong width should not be treated as spend you get to keep. Stocked items can be returned within 14 days of purchase if you call and arrange it. Buying the wrong product to hit a number, then returning it, is a worse use of the account than simply missing the number.
If the month is going to fall short
Look at the gap in the third week, not on the last afternoon. A reorder placed by 3pm leaves that day. The aim is 5.30pm the next working day, with a 1 to 3 day courier also described. An order placed after 3pm on the last working day of the month may not be the order you think it is. Bring forward a real reorder you would have placed next week: tape you will use, film you will use. Do not invent a product.
The terms say that if the spend is not met, the account can be moved back to standard prices, and that getting the rate back means applying again. A previous membership is not a guarantee. That is a reason to know the number during the month. It is not a reason to panic-buy. Buying on a trade account states the rule. TradePro is where the account is applied for and described.
A quiet seasonal month is still a quiet month. If your trade dips every January, plan the rate conversation then, instead of discovering it when an invoice is not discounted. The people who place the weekly order should know the running total. A warehouse that leaves the figure to whoever holds the card will miss it.
How the account pays, and what it does not change
TradePro adds BACS to card and PayPal, plus priority support and trade-only offers. BACS is not on a standard checkout. Payment is the page for the card methods everyone can use. Paying by BACS does not move the 3pm cutoff and does not change the £50 ex VAT free delivery threshold. A trade order under that delivery figure still leaves. It is not held to make the month look larger.
The discount applies to orders on the account. It is not a code to share, and membership is for trade businesses only. A closed business has to stop using it. Approval is not automatic. None of that is changed by a careful monthly total. The total is how you stay on the rate you were given. The weekly reorder topic is where the list, the spend and the shorter buying notes sit together.
Keep the list stable and the month takes care of the rate more often than a special order will. If the list itself is wrong, fix the list. A month of the right tape at 5% is cheaper, in the only sense that matters, than a month of the wrong tape at 10%.
If you want a simple check, write four lines at the start of the month, one per week, and fill the goods total in when the order is placed. A glance on Wednesday of week three tells you whether the last reorder should be the normal list or the normal list brought forward. Nobody has to open a spreadsheet to see a gap of a couple of hundred pounds, and nobody should close it with a product the bench will not touch.
Tell the person who places the order what the running total is before they start the basket. A reorder placed in ignorance of the month is how the gap appears on the last day, when the only levers left are a late order or a bad one. The total is a number on the list, next to the tape, not a surprise in the accounts.