Chipotle’s Rates Managed

Background 

Chipotle as based in Denver Colorado.  DWD are instructed by Chipotle across a range of services, including business rate appeals, rent reviews and BID Levy management services.  

Challenge

Being base overseas caused difficulty in the day-to-day administration of paying rate demands.  With missed payments, over-payments, occasional enforcement activity with the associated reputational risks, and a lack of specialist business rates knowledge.

DWD Service

To complement our existing rating appeal instructions, we developed a bespoke rate payment service that met Chipotle’s needs.  They wanted to retain control of the actual cash payments but needed to know precisely what they should be paying and when.

Richard Bason, a member of the DWD Business Rates Team, leads a process that: 

• produces liability and payment schedules, 
• makes DWD’s office the correspondence address for each of their restaurant’s business rate, council tax and BID Levy accounts, and
• checks the demands received for accuracy before either confirming they are appropriate to pay or identifying and resolving any issues with the relevant Billing Authority. 

Once DWD has approved a demand, Chipotle make their own payments direct to the relevant Local Authorities.

Outcome

This service allows Chipotle to retain financial control throughout the process while continuing to benefit from DWD’s invoice screening and authorisation function which ensures that only correctly issued and accurate demands are passed for payment.  

By seeing demands at the earliest possible point, DWD has also improved the speed of follow-up to rateable value reductions and exemption claims, ensuring that savings and, where appropriate, refunds are realised as early as possible. 

Of particular importance in recent years has been the additional benefit of ensuring that all appropriate reliefs and allowances, as well as the most beneficial instalment plans are in place.