Being in business involves risk. Waking up in the morning also involves risk. Everyone must decide for themselves their level of tolerance for risk.

I am getting ready to take this leap. I think the biggest factor in becoming a O/O is your preplanning before you actually start. I have read every post on the subject I can find many times. I have asked Steve and Mike many questions that they probably shook their heads and said oboy here is a guy that has some learning to do.

A business plan is the first place to start. If you don't put a short term and a long term business plan together together the bumps in the road will probably bite you.

With any new business there will be mistakes and if you haven't put in your business plan a few costly mistakes you will probably be in trouble fast.

I have been putting everything in order for almost a year. I have 0 debt at home and will have 0 debt and about $30K in reserve when I decide the time is right.

I can see someone going to the bank and signing their life way and becoming a slave to the bank having trouble.

Yup, OK, I agree.

...so who's to know (or care) if the shipment was just on pallets (inside or ouside the warehouse [or even in one of their un-roadwothy, un-plated trailers] awaiting for 'the motor carrier, owner-operator or co. driver for pick-up)?

Am I missing something?

THX guys

Product is still considered property of the shipper until a bill of lading is generated and signed by the carrier's agent (usually the driver). There are shippers who, no doubt, fudge the rules here and there. Though companies do want to avoid paying unnecessary inventory taxes, It has been my experience that end of quarter and end of year shipping surges are more a result of the sales and marketing division wanting to get the numbers locked down for the current quarter so that their bonuses aren't reduced.

When I was a Shipping Mgr/Inventory Control Mgr the inventory system we used kept the inventory that was loaded on a trailer on our dock until it was signed for by the driver. When the signed bills were entered into the system the inventory from the dock went away.

I had some carriers that would have 1 driver sign all the bills for the trailers we had loaded so I could relieve our inventory before the trailers were actually picked up. They did this during inventory week alot. If they didn't do this I had to back the trailers in and unload them and inventory them during our annual inventory.

The last week of the year we tried to work with the customers to ship everything possible a week ahead and have it on the road the last day of the year so nobody had to claim the inventory. Most of the carriers worked with me on this too. They would try and route the loads with drivers who could pass their house and sit on the load over the new years.

There are only a very few states that have inventory taxes(Indiana is one). Inventory is simply a cost of doing business not a taxable item for manufacturer.

The reason they push it out the door is take credit for revenue/sales. In GAAP you can accrue expenses but you can't accrue revenue. Revenue has to have an invoice and that's why you see big companies, especially publically held push product out the door at end of month or end of quarter.