An Post claims 'invoicing error' led to €221k underpayment of postmasters' wages

In January, the postal service wrote to each of its 861 postmasters informing them that their future wages would be docked by figures ranging from hundreds of euros to several thousand euros for the remainder of the quarter. File picture

An Post has said an 'invoicing error' led to the wages of postmasters being docked by at least €221,000.

In January, the postal service wrote to each of its 861 postmasters informing them that their future wages would be docked by figures ranging from hundreds of euros to several thousand euros for the remainder of the quarter.

An Post told the postmasters that the adjustments to be made would effectively balance the "amounts overpaid”.

“I apologise for any inconvenience caused to you as a result of this issue,” An Post’s retail finance director Sharon Kelly told the postmasters in her letter communicating the adjustment.

Financial adjustments are routinely applied to the income of postmasters, who operate as self-employed contractors — a situation that many postmasters are dissatisfied with.

An Post acknowledged that an “error in the normal adjustment process” had led to larger-than-usual adjustments being applied from January.

“This overpayment error represented 5% of the total value paid to postmasters on an average monthly basis,” a spokesperson for An Post said.

That figure would put the change in the region of €221,000 although the adjustments for several of the postmasters seen by the Irish Examiner were more than 5%.

An Post pays its postmasters an ‘imprest’ value in terms of their income, based on commissions calculated using the previous year’s performance as a guide.

Postmasters have complained that they have no insight into what they will be paid each month in advance of An Post informing them once a quarter, with no breakdown provided for the ‘estimated commissions’ detailed.

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“With the deductions from our salaries, there is no clear way for them to define what we’re paid,” said one postmaster. 

“We don’t invoice them, they pay us what they think we will earn in a month. How our salary is calculated is convoluted. A postmaster has no idea what will hit their bank account. There’s no way to influence profit or mitigate loss. There is no explanation for the extent of these cuts, it’s very, very lackadaisical,” the postmaster said.

A spokesman for An Post said the model of paying estimates of transactions before making adjustments was “agreed with relevant postmasters and the Irish Postmasters Union in 2018”.

“This model of forward paying estimates of transactions and adjusting for actuals is agreed with postmasters to assist them in managing the ongoing operation of their business,” the spokesman said.