Thursday, June 06, 2013

a moral dilemma

So Charlie.  My husband?

He has a little business that he started a few years ago and his little business has grown. It hasn't grown tremendously, but it's been a nice supplement to our revenue.

Charlie recently completed a job for his client and on that job, he had a subcontractor working for him. The subcontractor does "niche" work which means that it is highly specialized and there aren't very many companies that provide this exact service. Because there is relatively no competition in the region, Charlie is limited with who he can work with and so this niche subcontractor has worked with my husband for the past two years. For the most part, the subcontractor does fairly good work. Although, they tend to be a bit sloppy in their reporting.

For example, with almost every analytical report that Charlie receives from this subcontractor, there are errors.  Some of the errors are significant enough that the results would indicate his client has failed critical testing and would need to pay substantial governmental fines for non-compliance.  However, because my husband is very thorough with numbers and is quite handy with a calculator, during his reviews of the draft reports, he'll usually identify that the subcontractor forgot to carry a one, or is off by a decimal.  And nine out of ten times, that simple error will make the difference between a passing test and a failing test.  Or, the difference between compliance and non-compliance - the latter of which is accompanied by fines with lots of zeros.

A few months ago, Charlie received a cost proposal from his subcontractor to do work for him. And Charlie scanned the proposal briefly and thought it looked in line, so approved the work.  He did not go back and look at previous proposals to evaluate if the cost was consistent. Last month, Charlie executed the work and today, he received the invoice from his subcontractor for services rendered.

It was only tonight when my husband sat down to pay the invoice that he realized the invoice was off by several thousand dollars relative to what the invoice had been during the last sampling event.  But when he compared the invoice to the cost proposal, he saw that they were identical. It would therefore appear that the subcontractor had made an error in the cost proposal, by potentially underbidding the work, and either didn't notice the error, or noticed it but decided that it was too late because the proposal had already been approved.

Needless to say, Charlie is conflicted with what to do.

Does he call the subcontractor and let him know that it looks as though he underbid the project in the proposal and then, didn't invoice him the amount that Charlie was expecting from previous events? Or does he not say anything because the invoice is consistent with the proposal?

We were discussing what all of our former consultant employers would do, and without question, we know that they would pay the invoice as is, even if they recognized the possible error, and pocket the extra money with a smile on their face. That's life in the business world ... your mistake is my gain.

My recommendation is that he call the subcontractor and tell him that from one business man to another, he'd like to point out that over the past few years, he's observed a lot of errors that could have significant negative ramifications for his clients.  And now, he's noticing that there are errors in his bookkeeping practices that could have significant negative ramifications for him (the subcontractor). Then, I'd tell the subcontractor that it appears he has underbid the project based upon past invoices and ask if he'd like to submit a revised invoice?  Heck, that might be a good segue to suggest that the subcontractor hire Charlie as a quality controller to review all of his future reports and proposals.

Win-win! 

As my husband "sleeps" on his options, please tell us ... what would you do?

12 comments:

  1. I'd do exactly as you suggest.

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  2. I'd point it out to the sub and go from there. I have one rule in my classroom. Do the right thing because it's the right thing to do.

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    1. Susan, I love this, but when I tried to repeat the quote to Charlie I kept flubbing it up. "It's the right thing to do to do the right thing." No, no ... that's not it. "Do the right thing, right thing do do."

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  3. In my past experience, the best option is to call the contractor and work things out like civilized people. I always found that taking the time to pick up the phone is always the best option. :)

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  4. I'll have to ponder what I would do ...hell, no I don't - I would pay the invoice. it's not your job to lookout for this person's business, especially when you're running your own. Count it as payback for doing his man's work for him when you have to correct his reports. But I can tell you for sure this guy might (big might) be more careful with his invoices but he won't be more careful with his reports...which means Charlie will continue to have to go over his reports with a fine toothed comb and make corrections. He sounds pretty flaky if he doesn't get that he's underbidding by that much.

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    1. Twingles, thank you for justifying why it is that we had a moral dilemma about this in the first place. Your point, exactly. There is a BIG flake factor going on and what better way for him to learn the lesson about clean records (in reporting and bookkeeping) than to take a hit squarely in the wallet?

      Alas, our conscience won in the end.

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  5. Honesty is always the best policy. Charlie seems like a man of integrity, and he would further his reputation as such by taking your recommendation. Unless it's extra money that you guys really need in order to stay afloat, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Money for survival is a different set of rules, there's no disgrace in benefiting from his careless calculations if your family truly needed it.

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    1. Lauren, Charlie is a man of integrity and I think that's why he ultimately called the sub to let him know what had happened. But he's also human, so when he realized the error which had been compounded from the proposal to the invoice ... and he reflected on how many other errors have come up with this subcontractor ... he briefly entertained thoughts of how he'd put the extra $4K to use. We don't need it to survive, but I certainly wouldn't turn that $ down if somebody GAVE it to me!!

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    2. Yeah, I hear that! I didn't mention what I would do in his shoes, because I really don't know. I'm pretty good at rationalizing situations so I'm sure I could come up with a million and one reasons why my family *needed* the money. I'd like to think I'd do the right thing like Charlie, but I don't know. That Charlie is such a good guy! And hey, karma and all, right? :)

      Wowza, $4K? That subcontractor really needs to hire himself a little help, that is a pretty big error!

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  6. I agree with your recommendation. Especially since this is a "niche" market and Charlie will likely use him again in the future. And get the sub to hire Charlie as his quality controller! A true win-win.

    Christy in Florida

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  7. I'd go with your suggestion.

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  8. I see that Charlie made the call.

    I am always a fan of "Do onto others as you would have them do onto you." You never know, maybe someone will return the favor someday.

    Lesa in WI

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