My supervisor is considering to change the method of payment for cooperative advertising funds we pay to our customers from an invoice process to a credit note. It seems that in France cooperative advertising funds paid to customers are legally required to be invoiced instead of getting paid out via a credit note. Does anyone know if similar limitations should exists in any other countries in Europe, especially in Italy, Spain or Portugal?
Cooperative Advertising Funds
Answers
Do you mean that your French customers are required to invoice you for what they expect to receive (and do they have to submit proof of spend as evidence)?
As an aside.....When I worked for a multi-national consumer packaging company that had co-op ad spend/market dev programs, I required my customers to submit proof of their ad spend (including media invoices) to ensure that we were not funding adverts that helped our packaging competitors. My sales colleagues were puzzled until I showed them that our customers were asking us to fund spending on products packaged in our competitors'packaging. When I adjusted the claims (and explained politely why), there was no push back from the customers.
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