To think you can’t get arsey about an unpaid invoice...

[Merryoldgoat]

... if you’ve never checked to see it’s been received?

Someone popped into my office today to ask if there was an issue with payment. My clerk is working from home so I said I’d check.

As I’m bringing up the account he said ‘it’s from Feb 20’.

I won’t bore you with the entire conversation but since he’s supplied his services for around 10 years, and his bills are always paid within 2 weeks, isn’t it reasonable to think he might’ve noticed sooner than 13 months and check we’d received it?

He said ‘I thought I’d check before sending you a rude letter’ which just irritated me.

Obv this isn’t a big deal but I’m irked.

It was from Feb 20 so should've been in his 19/20 tax return

Not necessarily, no. The business might have accounts which run from Jan-Dec in which case it will be 20/21 for a personal tax return.

@emptyraspberry

It was from Feb 20 so should've been in his 19/20 tax return

Not necessarily, no. The business might have accounts which run from Jan-Dec in which case it will be 20/21 for a personal tax return.

He’s a sole trader

@darefullyciverse

I think it’s because one of my bug bears is self employed people who don’t keep good records.

This seems a bit unfair if you don't have good enough records to notice you've received goods/services but not paid for them

It's not the OPs job to know, off the top of her head, what invoices are due in. It lays with the budget holders. They know what spending they've arranged/committed to.

The OP can only work on what she knows, either from the supplier (invoice or statement) or the Budget Holder.

Neither of these told her about the work
That's why she doesn't know.

But ultimately I dont think he was rude - he was popping in as a step before sending a letter which is probably a standard template and would sound rude.

Its crap that he didnt realise he hasn't been paid.

But also the Budget Holder didnt realise the invoice was included in their accounts.

@Merryoldgoat

... if you’ve never checked to see it’s been received?

Someone popped into my office today to ask if there was an issue with payment. My clerk is working from home so I said I’d check.

As I’m bringing up the account he said ‘it’s from Feb 20’.

I won’t bore you with the entire conversation but since he’s supplied his services for around 10 years, and his bills are always paid within 2 weeks, isn’t it reasonable to think he might’ve noticed sooner than 13 months and check we’d received it?

He said ‘I thought I’d check before sending you a rude letter’ which just irritated me.

Obv this isn’t a big deal but I’m irked.

Are the invoices for the same amount each time?

If so, then their accounts person has probably been matching your payments against the earliest outstanding invoice first, and it has now come to light that there's one month when you didn't pay, but the following month's payment was matched against it, and so on. Until now, when they reconciled the account, realised you'd been sent 12 invoices that year and they've only received 11 payments, seen that there was one month with no payment and worked out it was that invoice.

Alternatively, he may just have been lenient about chasing it. Many businesses were closed all of a sudden around this time last year and things just didn't get done at all.

I’ve worked in accounts for years it happens often. I remember one job I was responsible for all the invoices paid and one supplier would often chase up invoices months later but I never had them . She said emailed them , ok they can go in junk or the security software may have blocked it but I used to say resend the original email . Could never do that because she hadn’t sent them . Some companies admin is shit and they phase it out instead of admitting not sent .
It’s happened loads of times over the years sometimes they admit not sent or sent to wrong person or email address wrong . I’d just sort out payment and let it go .

You overlooked money owed for a job done. How very dare he ask for money owed.

@jellybellybanana

You didn't pay him for work he did for you but you're cross at him for not chasing it up sooner?

This. ^

You knew the work was done. You knew therefore should have known was a missing invoice which wouldn't reconcile somewhere on your books if you do them properly. Otherwise you could have any old chancer on the phone ringing you up, saying you owe them money. The fact is you recognise instantly that this is a legitimate request for payment - how is that? You can't complain if you know its legitimate which is what you seem to be doing. You aren't disputing the invoices legitimacy which is the key bit here for me. You know its real so that much either be by some magical force or you have some kind of record of why its a legitimate claim in your system - even if thats purely from your memory (in which case you merely forgetting about it, isn't really good enough).

I did books for a long time and always knew what our outgoings were and would notice if there were missing invoices.

I wouldn't have let it slip to 12 months to chasing an unpaid invoice either. If there was something unpaid for some time, I'd always slip in a copy invoice for reference to make it more difficult for whingers complaining they didn't know what hadn't been unpaid and that they hadn't recieved it.

At 60days I'd expect prompt payment even if an invoice had gone AWOL though.

If we hadn't had a bill off a regular supplier we'd flag it. There would always be a purchase order for work done/goods purchased. ANYTHING which related to expenses HAD to have a purchase order raised. It was good practice to match purchase orders with invoices to ensure every invoice had come in as expected so we didn't get stung for payments for work done/goods purchased we had merely forgotten about for cash flow reasons. If a sole trader (or any other supplier) hadn't raised an invoice, I'd then actively chase it myself. This protected us against someone then coming after us in 12 months time and being overly aggressive about it or suddenly having an unexpected cash flow issue that we would struggle to deal with.

It sounds like you and your supplier are both pretty shit at bookkeeping and you would do well to improve your systems.

He never sent it! It wasn’t on the system and not in the inbox either.

This should have been in your OP. I voted YABU because it sounded like you're annoyed he didn't chase payment.

Meh - I think I you’ve taken offence where none was meant.

We had an issue at work with a piece of machinery. The company we had used previously came to service/repair it and gave us a verbal quote of how much it was likely to be. About a week later we hadnt receive an invoice so I called and asked them to email it. We called 3 more times in the next few weeks as we hadnt received it, each time giving our email address. In the end I called again after about 2 months and they had been sending it to the wrong email!! (I was amazed they hadnt sent it as a postal copy as well)

You knew the work was done. You knew therefore should have known was a missing invoice which wouldn't reconcile somewhere on your books if you do them properly

OP has stated she DIDN'T know the work had been done as she hadn't received an invoice

It's not the OPs job to know, off the top of her head, what invoices are due in. It lays with the budget holders. They know what spending they've arranged/committed to.

The OP can only work on what she knows, either from the supplier (invoice or statement) or the Budget Holder.

Everywhere I've worked has had a purchase order system where ALL work / goods ordered has to be noted at purchase point. It was always my job as admin to check if things ordered matched correctly in both directions. This way budget holders could keep to their budgets and the payments department could tell that requests for payment were above board.

Strangely enough, the system was true in reverse whenever I called up to request payment. I would need a Purchase Order Number and an Invoice number to authorise payment and this was true of the vast majority of companies - large and small - that I dealt with.

So yes there is a fair chance this is actually the OP's job to check. And if its not, I have to question why there isn't a PO system to protect from scammers / to ensure there aren't issues with cash flow.

OP has stated she DIDN'T know the work had been done as she hadn't received an invoice

Somebody knew the work was done though.

If he had sent you a statement you would realise there was an invoice missing
A company that has loads of received invoices will often not notice a missing one
All his fault couldn’t have been that bothered or would have chased it earlier his accounts systems are not up to scratch

I work for a big company, if a supplier doesn't send an invoice, it would not get logged in the system. The onus is on the supplier.

@Cadent

He never sent it! It wasn’t on the system and not in the inbox either.

This should have been in your OP. I voted YABU because it sounded like you're annoyed he didn't chase payment.

No! We get hardly any chasers because we always pay on time - I detest late payers. We have the means so we pay.

@FuckyouCovid21

You knew the work was done. You knew therefore should have known was a missing invoice which wouldn't reconcile somewhere on your books if you do them properly

OP has stated she DIDN'T know the work had been done as she hadn't received an invoice

Hence the need for a Purchase Order system.

No Purchase Order, no payment. Its that simple.

@jellybellybanana

OP has stated she DIDN'T know the work had been done as she hadn't received an invoice

Somebody knew the work was done though.

Exactly....

So where is the Purchase Order and cross referencing Purchase Orders with Invoices Recieved?

No! We get hardly any chasers because we always pay on time - I detest late payers. We have the means so we pay.

Changed vote to YANBU :)

@RedToothBrush

I can’t even begin to untangle all of those bizarre inferences.

Any invoice I get, especially from a recognised supplier would be treated as ‘not a scam’ but I’d still send it for authorisation.

Saying ‘send through a copy’ doesn’t mean I’ll pay it instantly?!

Purchase order systems are not necessary for all businesses

What would you expect him to do? Sounds like he very reasonably came in to check to see what was happening. And now it's sorted.

How did he act? Was he not being jokey?

@rosie1959

If he had sent you a statement you would realise there was an invoice missing A company that has loads of received invoices will often not notice a missing one All his fault couldn’t have been that bothered or would have chased it earlier his accounts systems are not up to scratch

Statements are the other way to spot something is missing.

I've spent hours of my life matching paperwork to make sure we haven't missed an invoice somehow.

Its about robust systems being needed and implemented.

If there was a situation where no purchase invoice was raised and someone was chasing money, it would go to my boss and the supplier would have to provide appropriate documentation proving authorisation of goods bought / work agreed. It happens occassionally.

Its all about protecting yourself as much as expecting a supplier to do the donkey work for you.

[quote Merryoldgoat]@RedToothBrush

I can’t even begin to untangle all of those bizarre inferences.

Any invoice I get, especially from a recognised supplier would be treated as ‘not a scam’ but I’d still send it for authorisation.

Saying ‘send through a copy’ doesn’t mean I’ll pay it instantly?![/quote]
If its over 60 days and you've got the purchase history it should be.

It doesn't sound like you have a clue what your company has purchased and you don't have a system to keep track of it!

So yes there is a fair chance this is actually the OP's job to check. And if its not, I have to question why there isn't a PO system to protect from scammers / to ensure there aren't issues with cash flow.

It’s not my job to check.

There isn’t a PO system because the infrastructure required for a relatively small business doesn’t make sense when review the costs vs benefits.

It’s is generally perfectly sufficient to ask budget holders to use their budget code and initials before placing orders. They’re budgets are small and do not present a risk.

The larger budgets ARE managed by me and approval goes to committee and therefore all are approved and signed off.