Guest post: Credit notes – Part 1/2

Posted in Guest post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

Hi, dear followers! Having an awful day on this side of the computer. Hope yours is/was better.

Today’s guest post, by Nancy Matis, is split in two parts. You’ll read the first today and the second next Tuesday.

Welcome, Nancy!

Credit notes for translation projects

Translation companies, translators or any other participant in a translation project might find that they have to issue credit notes. Most of the time, credit notes are associated with quality complaints, but many other reasons might prompt a client to ask for one.

In this article, I will briefly go through the information this type of document contains, explore the reasons why credit notes are requested and explain how to avoid them.

What is a credit note?

A credit note is a document produced by a subcontractor stating that a certain amount has to be credited to the client. This amount can equal a previously issued invoice, part of an invoice or even the sum of several invoices. It will be repaid to the client or deducted from future payments by the latter.

What information is compulsory on a credit note?

The content of a credit note is very similar to that of an invoice. It should always include the following information:

Contact information of the client and the subcontractor
VAT registration number of both of them if VAT applies in their country and if they are VAT registered
Financial data of the subcontractor
Credit note number
Issue date
Amount to be credited
VAT percentage applicable
Grand total of the credit note, VAT included

What other information might be added to a credit note?

The due date and the client’s financial details are actually optional, but they can obviously be included.

The identification number of the related invoice(s) as well as the reason(s) for generating this document can also be mentioned.

Depending on the client or the subcontractor, other information could be added, such as the name and number of the translation project(s) to be credited, the project manager’s name, the requester’s details and so on.

In all cases, the “CREDIT NOTE” terms should clearly state the nature of this legal document, so that it cannot be confused with a new invoice.

Reasons to issue a credit note

a. Translation quality problems

Sometimes clients require a credit note when they are not happy with the quality of a translated text. Before agreeing to issue such a document, the translator or the translation agency should receive accurate feedback or take a very close look at the final target text sent back by the client to assess the scale of the problem.

Judging the quality level of a translation is often subjective. Therefore, before acknowledging a quality problem, you should make sure that unquestionable mistakes are present, such as typos or failures to comply with glossaries, style guides or any instructions provided by the client.

After some discussion, the client will hopefully drop the credit note request or at least agree to decrease the required amount to be credited, for instance from 50% of the job budget to 15%.

b. Other project problems reported by the client

Credit notes might also relate to complaints linked to production tasks other than pure translation, for example the desktop publishing of some target files, the testing and debugging of the localised software, the rebuilding of Flash animations or even the creation of a multilingual website. If the client estimates that the final result is not worth the amount initially quoted or invoiced, he might insist on getting a credit note for a specific value.

Some dissatisfaction could also relate to project management tasks, for instance failing to deliver a translation project on time. Missing a specific deadline could be highly detrimental to a client, who will demand compensation from the provider.

c. Mistakes in some compulsory data

If some key data on the invoice are not correct, such as the company address or VAT number, the client will ask the subcontractor to issue a credit note stating the same “wrong” data and to create a brand new invoice showing the correct information. Imagine a Translation Project Manager (TPM) providing localisation services to a client contact based in a subsidiary of an international company and addressing his invoice to this local office. When the client’s accountant starts paying the invoices, he suddenly realises that this specific invoice was meant for head office. He will consequently require a credit note to cancel the first invoice in his accounts. Similar cases could also occur due to company mergers.

Regarding other erroneous data that could appear on an invoice, some clients will demand a credit note while others will simply change the data themselves or even register the invoice containing the mistake. The final amount stated on the invoice might not exactly match the price the client was expecting, but he pays it anyway, especially when it is lower than planned.

d. Non-compulsory information errors

The internal policy of some companies, whether they are end-clients or translation agencies, dictates certain guidelines for the content of the invoices to be received. Failing to follow them could lead to a request for a credit note.

Let’s imagine you work for three project managers (PM) within the same translation agency and, at the end of the month, you issue one single invoice including all your jobs. Depending of their internal approval policy, some agencies prefer to receive one invoice per PM. In this case, you would have to send a credit note cancelling the first invoice and reissue three new invoices, each listing the work delivered to the different PMs.

Similarly, many clients use Purchase Order (PO) numbers for translation jobs. Forgetting to include those numbers or referencing the wrong ones on invoices might prompt them to ask for a credit note.

A subcontractor might also mistakenly invoice one job twice. If he included several translation jobs on his invoice, the client will either require a credit note only for the amount of the duplicate job, or opt for a credit note covering the whole invoice and ask the subcontractor to reissue the complete correct invoice.

Read Part 2

Thanks, Nancy, for accepting my invitation and kindly taking the time to write such a great contribution to our blog!

Stay tuned for the second part next week, where Nancy also provides an example of a credit note for translation projects.

About the author
Nancy Matis is the author of the book “How to manage your translation projects”, originally published in French and recently translated by her partner company in the UK. Nancy has been involved in the translation business for around 20 years, working as a translator, reviser, technical specialist, project manager and teacher, among other roles. She currently manages her own company based in Belgium, specialising in localisation, translation project management, consulting and training. She teaches at numerous universities across Europe and has published several articles about translation project management. During these past few years, she has also been involved in some European projects, designing and evaluating training materials for future translators and project managers.

16Dec2014

Guest post: Translator competence

Posted in Guest post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

Here we are, on our last guest post of the year. And I’m very proud and happy to announce that today’s guest, wrapping up 2014 in great style, is the lovely Lynne Bowker, who I had the great pleasure to meet at UNESP’s Semana do Tradutor back in September.

Welcome, dear Lynne!

Translators and the need for speed

I’m very excited to be writing a guest blog post for Caroline, who I met at the XXXIV Semana do Tradutor in Brazil in September. Caroline indicated that I was free to choose any topic relevant to translators or translation, as long as it had not already been covered in a previous post. Therefore, like a good translator and researcher, I first diligently read the previous posts (I even attempted the ones in Portuguese!). And I’m really glad that I did. For one thing, I feel like I know Caroline a little better. I found out that she likes Alice in Wonderland, which means that she has something in common with Warren Weaver, who is one of my personal heroes in the field of translation. That’s Weaver as in “Weaver’s Memorandum”, the document that launched serious investigation into Machine Translation. Regardless of whether or not you are a fan of machine translation, Dr. Weaver was an impressive person in a number of respects.

I also learned that we share the same birthday week in January, which means that Caroline is a Capricorn. No wonder she’s so dedicated, hardworking and professional, as well as being a generous and all-around terrific person. 🙂 Thank you, Caroline, for the opportunity to get to know you better and to write a guest post for your blog.

In reading the previous posts, I observed some recurring themes, such as “translator education”, “knowledge vs skills” and “productivity”. I’ve decided to try to extend the discussion of some of these ideas by framing them in the context of my own experience as a professor of translation at the University of Ottawa in Canada.

The question of whether a translator education program should focus on knowledge (which leans towards theory or what Don Kiraly (2000) refers to as “translation competence”) or skills (which lean more towards the non-linguistic activities that support translation, or what Kiraly groups under the category of “translator competence”). Conventionally, universities have come down on the side of knowledge, contending that skills are too short-lived. For example, a university professor might argue that with regard to computer-aided translation, the important things to learn in class are the underlying concepts, and not the “how to” steps of using a specific piece of software, which may be outdated or out of fashion by the time the student graduates. Instead, the focus of a university education is on developing critical analysis, on honing evaluation, and on refining judgement. I think that few people would argue against this focus. Translation is a challenging task, and doing it well requires serious reflection. Learning to do it well, even more so!

Nevertheless, universities cannot ignore the fact that, after students graduate, they need to function in a professional work setting. One area where new graduates sometimes struggle is in meeting the tight deadlines which are a reality in the translation profession.

In many translator education courses, the focus is placed firmly on encouraging students to reflect fully, to analyze deeply, and to weigh options carefully before committing to a translation strategy, a terminological choice or a turn or phrase. There is no doubt that students must cultivate these deliberate analytical skills, and they must be given the time to develop them. However, in the professional world, there may be less time for careful deliberation. Instead, the translation must come quickly, if not automatically. Therefore, the addition of authentic and situated learning that tests and improves students’ translation skills under time pressure makes sense. It is an additional way to prepare students for the working world and to let them experience translation in a different form and under different circumstances.

Therefore, I have made a conscious decision to try to introduce some “speed training” into the courses that I teach. For the first time this year, in a 3^rd-year course on professional writing, I have the students begin each class by preparing a précis or summary of a longer text. The texts in question are popularized texts on topics of general interest to students in Canada (e.g. the International Space Station, the World Series baseball championships, the discovery of a 19^th-century shipwreck in the Arctic). Each text is approximately 600 words in length, and students are given 15-20 minutes to summarize the contents in about 200 words. The students receive feedback each week, although the exercises are not always graded. This takes the pressure off and allows the students to develop these skills in a low-risk environment.

The overall idea behind this “speed writing” summarization exercise is that it can allow the students to sharpen a number of skills and reflexes that are also useful for translation: the ability to analyze and grasp meaning quickly, the ability to extract key ideas and structure from a text, the ability to organize ideas, and the ability to convey ideas accurately and to recognize and avoid distortion in information transfer. By introducing speed training in a writing context, I hope that students will be better able to hone their capacity for making decisions quickly, and they can then extend this to a bilingual context at a subsequent stage of their training.

Students were surveyed at the mid-point in the semester to determine whether or not they found the exercise to be valuable. On the whole, their comments were positive and they indicated that they saw a genuine value in learning to work more quickly, and that they did feel that they were improving these skills as a result of practicing speed writing on a regular basis. There will be another survey at the end of the semester, and it will be interesting to see how their thoughts have evolved.

Meanwhile, from an instructor’s perspective, I have also noted improvements. Firstly, at the beginning of the semester, a number of students were unable to complete the exercise fully; however, now that we are nearing the end of the semester, students are able to finish within the time allotted. They are getting faster! With regard to quality, the information flow has improved significantly – the recent summaries read like actual texts, rather than like collections of independent sentences. The students are also doing a better job of differentiating between the key ideas and the more peripheral content.

So my questions to you, readers, are as follows: Did you ever do any formal “speed training” as part of your education? If not, do you think that it would have been helpful? Do you have suggestions for other ways in which “speed training” could be incorporated into a translator education program? Do you have suggestions for other types of professional “translator competence” type skills that could usefully be incorporated into a translator education program?

Some translation professors are genuinely interested in helping students to bridge theory and practice, but to do this successfully, we need input from practicing professionals! I look forward to hearing your thoughts! And thanks again to Caroline for the opportunity to write this guest post.

Thank you, Lynne, for promptly and so kindly accepting my invitation to write to my humble blog and taking the time to write such a wonderful contribution to our series. I really appreciate it. It was a lovely Christmas gift to the blog. 🙂

As a former translation student, I do think it is extremely important to add practical aspects to the formal theoretical education we already have. Trying to prepare the student as much as possible to the real world will certainly help them get into the market feeling less lost and more ready to take the bull by the horns.

Dear readers, please note that our guest series will be taking a three-week vacation for Christmas, New Year and my birthday (:D). We’ll be back at full speed on January 13th, 2015. Happy Holidays!

About the author
Lynne Bowker is a certified translator (French-English) with the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario (ATIO). She earned a BA and MA in Translation from the University of Ottawa, an MSc in Computer Applications for Education from Dublin City University, and a PhD in Language Engineering from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). She has been teaching translation, terminology, translation technologies and information studies at the University of Ottawa since 2000. In spring 2014, she was an invited professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. To find out more about her teaching activities, and particularly her thoughts on teaching translation technologies, check out this summary in Research Media.