Alaska Fish Ticket Repricing Best Practices
Repricing at the end of an Alaska fishing season can be daunting. But, by following our four steps of best practices, this process can get easier and more efficient year over year.
Step 1: Audit Fish Tickets & Make Corrections
As the fishing season ends, it’s time to figure out final prices so you can pay your fishermen and report for ADF&G purposes. But hold on! Before you start making price adjustments, you need to audit your fish ticket data and make any corrections so that when you do reprice, you know you’re repricing the right tickets. For instance, maybe there was an error made on a fish ticket that caused an applicable premium not to be applied so if you were to reprice all tickets with that premium, that fish ticket wouldn’t get the reprice – AKA: that’s an error that needs to be corrected before you reprice. While auditing your data is tedious (we’re not going to lie), the time it can save you by catching the error before you reprice is well worth the effort. If you have the bandwidth, maybe consider auditing your fish ticket data on a regular schedule throughout the season so the effort at the end of the season isn’t as big.
Pro tip: Using a system that can automatically apply premiums to fish tickets that meet the criteria you set is a great way to reduce auditing needs and have the peace of mind that your data is accurate!
Step 2: Put Processes In Place To Avoid Recurring Issues & Corrections
Once your audit is complete and you’ve corrected the errors you found, you should inspect what needed correcting and put any necessary processes in place to avoid needing those same corrections next season. Using our example from before, maybe there was a premium that was missed for some fish tickets because the person entering the fish ticket data wasn’t aware the premium was applicable, or maybe didn’t even know it was offered. To prevent that same thing from happening next season, maybe you need to implement more training in the off season or create a premiums cheat sheet documenting what premiums are applicable and when. Or, maybe you accepted inconsistent Grade codes (i.e. inconsistent spacing and hyphen usage) throughout the season just to get you through because changing procedures mid-season can be too much. Well, now that the season’s over, you have to find all versions of each Grade, correct them for accuracy, report on them, maybe even reprice premiums for them, etc. To avoid this happening again next year, you should create a requirement that Grades be entered with the correct code and maybe even take it so far as to prevent incorrect codes from being entered into your system at all.
Step 3: Determine Your Repricing Strategy & Reprice In Bulk
Determine what you’ll offer for premiums and bonuses that you’ll need to reprice tickets based on, in addition to making price adjustments for the fish itself. For example, maybe at the end of the season you decide to pay $1.35 for sockeye with a $.08 bonus for bled sockeye in RSW only, $0.15 for sockeye chilled in ice or RSW, and $0.05 premium for floated fish for drifters and a $0.15 bonus for chilling for set netters, like Icicle Seafoods determined for their 2019 season. Or, maybe you’re like Peter Pan Seafoods for their 2019 season and decide to pay set netters $0.25 for chum, $0.15 for ice and an additional $0.05 for premium chill and no bonuses for bleeding. Whatever you decide, make sure you adjust for these premiums and bonuses accurately on all applicable fish tickets.
A good strategy to help make sure all your applicable fish tickets get repriced accurately is to reprice all tickets for a single specie at a time. Instead of repricing fish tickets individually, if you reprice all tickets for a single specie at a time, you’ll know no tickets were missed for that specie, so long as you audited and corrected your data accordingly. You should have a record keeping system that allows you to filter for all fish tickets that meet the criteria of the specie you’re repricing for in order to make this process as efficient and accurate as possible.
Pro Tip: Whether you’re repricing all tickets at the end of the season or doing a $0.10 bonus in the middle of the season, repricing by specie is the most accurate way to guarantee you didn’t miss any applicable tickets.
Step 4: Pay Your Fishermen
Once your repricing is complete, it’s time to pay your fishermen what you owe them. Before the season began, you should have determined how you would pay your fishermen – i.e. via check, ACH/direct deposit, etc. Now that it’s time to pay them, make sure you do it in a timely manner, with a statement of the balance they’re being paid that illustrates what they’re being paid for, and via the method you previously agreed upon.
Pro Tip: Offering ACH/direct deposit payment for your fishermen can be a great motivator to fish for you instead of a competitor that doesn’t offer it because it means your fishermen can get paid sooner and avoid having to wait for a check and getting to a bank to deposit it since they’re out at sea. Also, offering split payments can also be a great motivator to fish for you because it can alleviate some of your fishermen’s stress around paying their crew by offering to do it for them!
Step 5: Enjoy!
In order to make the repricing process easier and more efficient year over year, follow our four steps of auditing your fish tickets and making corrections, putting processes in place to avoid recurring errors and corrections, determining your repricing strategy and repricing in bulk, and paying your fishermen. Then, take it a step further and book a free demo to see how NorthScope can automatically apply premiums to fish tickets, require accurate and consistent fish ticket data, reprice fish tickets in bulk, help pay fishermen via ACH/direct deposit, and offer split checks for covering crew wages.