Can you consider returned letters / postage within business unpromising debt? We sent out a mailing to over 700 businesses (bars, nightclub, restaurants)

We sent out a mailing to over 700 businesses (bars, nightclub, restaurants) for our pest control business, using a variety of sources, but mostly the phone book. Over 100 of these hold been returned, most "undeliverable as address, return to sender" with some "vacant" and some "moved, departed no address." Can we consider the returned mail as "doomed to failure debt" on next year's taxes? Haven't counted all the same, but there may even be over 200 returned... We address them correctly most of the time. Am thinking the bars/taverns don't usually have a communication receptacle and the mail distribution people haven't be entering the places to drop off the letters internally...which seems weird because at 3 places I've worked, the postal carrier other stopped in to pick up and deliver the communication at the front desk. So why not at a restaurant/nightclub?

Answers: You cannot count this as bad debt. You already wrote sour the expense off mail them. That is all that you can write bad. If you write an additional amount stale as bad debt, you will be double booking expenses which is a big no, no!

You obligation to speak with an accountant, but my first instinct is NO. I guess not because you've already put the expense into your books as "postage" or "mailings" or "advertising".

P.S. Direct Mail is a BIG no-no for small start up business. It is much more cost effective to bear out a small advertisement within your local papers and newsletters. The response rate is so little, you aren't even covering your margins.

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