Making Cents

A colleague of mine was shocked the other day that we would send a bill for $0.40. The individual stated, anything less than a dollar should be waived. I stared at the person in shock, before raising my jaw off the ground and tried to explain the concept. If we waived any bills under a dollar, it would add up to thousands of dollars of lost revenues over a year. And in our world of constrained budgets, every cent counts. It was terrifying to me that this individual didn't understand this. The person thought I was just being overly conservative about money.

I remember the first time my father explained why every cent counts. I had questioned why he drove across the street to get gas for one cent less than the gas on our side of the street. To my childish mind, it made no sense. My father asked me to figure out how much money he would save over a month or year by saving that measly one cent and what I could buy instead with that money. It was a concept I learned rather quickly as a child.

I guess I should have used the same explanation to my colleague. If we receive a hundred research requests a week and thirty of those bills are less than a dollar, how much unrecognized revenue would accumulate over a month or year.

I truly hope this colleague never is placed in charge of our budgets because this is fiscally irresponsible in difficult budgetary times. But it does make me concern to think how many other people believe it's no big deal and to round up or down when it comes to cents. Don't get me wrong, I don't nickle and dime everything in my life, but I think this is a reasonable concept to use in a work environment. Has anyone explained this concept to the next generation who may not understand the idea of decimals and the importance of making every cent count? Just food for thought.