Corporate accounts: selling to business clients without unpaid invoices

A corporate account is not a discount: it is a credit line that you grant, with your cash flow and your fleet behind it. Open one only once you have a framework agreement (contrato marco) signed by a representative with valid powers of attorney, a recent credit report, and payment terms proportional to the risk you are taking on.

In an agency running 5 to 40 vehicles, the problem is almost never charging too little, it is being paid too late. A business client who rents vans every month for half a season and then stops paying wipes out the margin on a long string of counter rentals. The good news is that nearly all of that risk is controlled before you hand over the first key, with three or four checks that cost nothing and a payment arrangement that extends trust in stages.

What a corporate account actually is

It is an arrangement whereby the client company stops paying rental by rental and becomes a single identified debtor, with agreed rates and consolidated invoicing. For the client it is administrative convenience; for you it is trade finance, because you hand over the vehicle before you see the money. The package usually covers four things:

• Centralised invoicing: one VAT invoice (factura con IVA) in the company name, with its registered name, tax address and tax number (CIF), instead of a payment per driver.
• Agreed rates by vehicle category and by volume, stable for the term of the agreement.
• Defined payment terms: prepaid, settled on return, or deferred within the period you have agreed.
• Agreed operating rules: who may collect the vehicle, with what documents, during which hours, and where it is returned.

What you check before saying yes

Half an hour of checks on a new client is infinitely cheaper than a registered legal notice six months later. You do not need a credit department: a short checklist, applied every time, including when the client comes recommended.

Identity and authority to bind the company

• Exact registered name and tax number, and confirmation that the company is registered with the Registro Mercantil, the Spanish commercial register.
• Incorporation deed and power of attorney, or a register extract confirming that the signatory's powers are still valid.
• Identity document of the authorised signatory. If the person negotiating with you is not one, insist that someone who is signs the framework agreement.
• If the client is a sole trader (autónomo): identity document, tax registration (modelo 036 or 037) and registration with the self-employed social security scheme. A sole trader answers with personal assets; a limited company only with company assets.

Solvency and payment behaviour

• A credit report from a commercial information agency, showing how long the company has existed and how its accounts have moved.
• A search of the business late-payment registers. An open entry need not be a veto, but it is a reason to stay on prepayment.
• Annual accounts filed with the register. A company that has gone years without filing them is a signal worth taking seriously.
• Two references from suppliers who already invoice it on terms. A five-minute phone call tells you more than any document.

Staging trust: from pre-authorisation to deferred payment

Credit is earned in stages. First you charge up front, then on return of the vehicle, and only then do you open deferred payment, with an internal risk ceiling that you know and do not have to publish.

Two refinements make the difference. The first is accumulated exposure: what matters is not the price of one rental but how much that client can owe you at any one time, counting open bookings and outstanding invoices. The second is the automatic brake: when an invoice falls due unpaid, the client goes back to prepayment. That brake belongs in the contract, not in your head, so that the day you apply it nobody can say you invented it on the spot.

The framework agreement: what to put in writing

The framework agreement is not paperwork: it is what turns a conversation into a claimable debt. Have your accountant or legal adviser review it, but make sure these points are in there.

1. 1Parties, the signatories and their powers, and the term of the agreement, renewed expressly and never automatically.
2. 2Rates by category, included mileage, the cost of extras and the mechanism for revising prices.
3. 3Payment terms, payment method, and the concrete consequence of delay: credit suspended and a return to prepayment.
4. 4Deposit or pre-authorisation: when it is held, which rate it is calculated on, and when it is released.
5. 5Allocation of liability for damage, excess, fuel, cleaning, tolls and traffic penalties, including the procedure for identifying the driver to the DGT, the Spanish traffic authority.
6. 6Driver authorisation letter: a template the company signs for each employee who will drive.
7. 7Billing contact, the channel invoices are sent through, how driver data is handled, and how formal demands are served.

Volume rates without giving away margin

Business clients ask for a better price, and that is fair enough. The mistake is trading rate for a volume promise that nobody ever measures.

• Discount on volume delivered, not on intention: review at the end of the period and adjust the rate for the next one.
• Exclude peak periods in writing or apply a season rate, or you will end up with your best week of the year sold at your lowest price.
• Charge separately for what genuinely costs you: out-of-branch delivery, airport collection, additional driver, replacement vehicle.
• Ask for reciprocity: a minimum cancellation notice, a collection window and a single point of contact. And measure margin per client, not turnover.

Delivery note, authorisation letter and invoice

When you have to chase money, what counts is not trust but the file. For every rental on a corporate account you should be able to produce three documents without hunting for them.

• A delivery note (albarán) or rental contract signed at handover and at return, with mileage, fuel level and a damage report with dated photographs.
• A driver authorisation letter signed by the company, which ties the rental to the corporate client and not to the employee standing at your counter.
• A VAT invoice in the company name, with complete tax details, a reference to the delivery note, and proof that it was sent through the agreed channel.

When the invoice goes unpaid: collecting without losing the relationship

Most unpaid invoices are not fraud: they are administrative disorder or a cash-flow squeeze. That changes the tactics, because the aim is to get paid and, if the client is a good one, to keep working with them. Order matters.

1. 1Call the accounts department before you write. Confirm that the invoice is logged and approved: a good share of delays is resolved right there.
2. 2Send a written statement of account with the signed delivery note attached. A documented claim is argued with far less.
3. 3Suspend the credit, not the relationship: go back to prepayment and keep taking bookings. That way you get paid without closing the door.
4. 4If there is willingness to pay but no liquidity, sign a payment schedule with an acknowledgement of debt.
5. 5With no reply, send a formal demand by registered legal notice (burofax) and, with your lawyer, move to a court claim. Spain's summary proceeding for documented debts exists for exactly this.

One warning: Spanish late-payment legislation limits the payment period two companies may agree, and both that rule and the procedural requirements change over time. Describe the mechanism in your own terms and conditions, but confirm the actual periods, and the VAT treatment of a bad debt, with your accountant or gestor and with the official sources, the BOE and the Agencia Tributaria. The same goes for anything you write about traffic rules: low-emission zone rules and the environmental sticker are set out by the DGT and by each city council, and they move often.

Where a platform like DRIVO fits in

Saying no to a business client is far easier when another channel is filling your calendar. DRIVO is a European marketplace where travellers rent directly from independent and local agencies, and listing your fleet costs 0 €: no listing fee and no monthly fee, with commission charged only on completed bookings, so an empty week costs you nothing.

• Automatic Stripe payouts and a back-office with bookings, calendar and fleet management.
• Multilingual listings that reach travellers in five languages, with a verified profile and reviews.
• Cross-border reach across Europe and North Africa: France, Spain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Morocco and Tunisia, covering cars, vans and utility vehicles, motorhomes and campervans where local supply exists.

It does not replace your credit policy or your corporate book: it is the counterweight that lets you keep both demanding. Baseline occupancy comes from travellers; agreed volume comes from the business client who has already shown they pay.