To not pay over due invoices I just received immediately?

[topaynowornot]

I am an accountant and work in the accounts department for a mid size company.

I have just received several overdue invoices from a supplier. All sent with high importance asking for them to be paid now. They are over due but I have never received them before so haven't been scheduling them.

I asked and they said 'their system sends them' she said she can't find the emails that were sent to me, well that's not my fault. Our systems sends things too but a copy goes to my email address, so this makes me think she hasn't sent them to the right place or at all. I have asked that they honour their usual credit term. She has said she's not sure they can do that.

It's for a very large amount. I do keep an eye on POs that have been raised and have provided for this to be paid at some point this year but some POs are not completed for months.

AIBU to think they should give me the full credit terms?

Depending on the contractual agreement- ie 30 days from invoice or payment after delivery or other you are required to make payment as per your agreed terms.

I have customers who try to delay making payments by saying they haven't received their invoices when in fact they have.

I have no issues placing them on credit hold preventing them from receiving any further deliveries from my company or calling upon a debt collector to recover money outwith the terms.

Regardless of the size of the company they are entitled to payment for services provided and may need that money to keep them afloat.

Since you lied here by saying you don't have the money then further down the post you say you do have the money, I'd question whether you actually did receive the invoice(s) originally and just buying time. Either way you'll only get away with that once per supplier

It certainly is. We've had several of our customers go under in the last year, and there's one more that I suspect is about to go bust. Fortunately they don't owe us much.

All the bad debt paperwork from the liquidators lands on my desk, and it is quite an eye-opener to see just how much their fees are.

I don't think we are the right people to ask. What's your normal company procedure?

Wouldn't be getting paid at the company I work at, day 1 is counted from the day we receive the invoice and we'll then pay on 30 days, 60 days, sometimes even 90 days depending on the arrangement with that particular supplier. If they're tardy with getting their invoice in then that's on them. Never yet had a supplier put us on stop, but it probably makes a difference that we're a large multinational and could just go elsewhere if they did.

I'm on the other end of this @WYorkshireRose and I totally agree with you. I don't expect to get paid the moment I submit an invoice, that's when the clock starts so it's 30 days after that (30 days being the standard for my industry).

If I don't get around to invoicing until a few weeks after I have completed/submitted the work, that's on me. The payment period is still the payment period.

Usually POs have receipts done.
If the receipt was done and not invoiced you have a mismatch which you need a report for.

If the receipt was not done in a timely fashion, you have a mismatch which you need a report for and to talk to engineering about their relationship management when suppliers don't get paid!

Those invoices should have been accrued for, you must have been expecting them, whilst I don't make things like this a priority if they can't prove they haven't sent them on time, I wouldn't expect the full credit terms.

OP's story keeps changing. I can pick loads of holes in her posts, especially re engineers raising PO's :

"The engineers raise POs, often these things take months to materialise as it depends on the progress of the project. It has been forecasted but always put into week 6 as it has not yet been invoiced. Once it is invoiced it begins its track in the cash flow to being paid. "

And? So? All of this is traceable and trackable. Nothing should come as a surprise in accounts, ever, ideally.

Other people are making assumptions. Only later was it suggested that the invoices were 'backdated'. Which is a totally different book keeping concept. I don't think they were.

Or she later said statements hadn't been sent. Drip feed. Even if statements hadn't been sent, it is her job to know. She shouldn't even need statements. They are a control procedure, a checking mechanism.

And I'm laughing at posters telling op her mistake was asking non accounts people about it.

Oh tee hee.

I've re-read. I agree with @Merryoldgoat, story keeps changing.

@blacksax
I'm with her! I should've gone into insolvency. "Very lucrative."

Ah - my Mumsnet Accountant Bestie has arrived! I’m always glad when you show up 🥳

@Merryoldgoat
Likewise. ❤️

Remember I'm not qualified though, (failed a paper years ago), which is why I never claim to be an accountant.

But I do know all audit rules, FRS's, system rules, enough, to be able question, eg some of the things on this thread.

You are absolutely an accountant - you are just not chartered or qualified but accountant isn’t protected.

I am also not fully qualified - life got in the way but I’ve consistently got jobs over more qualified candidates ’on paper’ because of experience and knowledge like you I doubt doubt.

No they didn't email me their invoice and admitted as much.

@Oblomov24 There are POs yes but we in the accounts don't know if those orders will be fufilled. It is expected that once a supplier has done work they will invoice.

DH is a sole trader, he send an invoice straight away.

A statement could have avoided all of this. If the supplier sent one I would have been able to see that we had not received their invoices.
I didn't say they back dated the invoices, I don't think this supplier did. We have one that does, it annoys me but once it's within a few days I let it go.

@WYorkshireRose I worked one place like that it was huge and they did not have any flexibility. If the PO was out a tiny amount the whole thing had to be resubmitted.

There are POs yes but we in the accounts don't know if those orders will be fufilled. It is expected that once a supplier has done work they will invoice.

But do you not understand that as an accountant in a business with tightly managed cash flow you SHOULD know. You should be having a monthly update with PMs or budget holders to get the status of the projects.

I’ve worked places where cash was managed so tightly that we updated the cash flow daily (urgh). I’ve also worked places where cash is so plentiful we could pay every single liability on our balance sheet without blinking.

You have to adapt to your business and in yours you need to be proactively across the projects so your forecasting is as accurate as possible.

Its perfectly reasonable not to pay an invoice immediately if payment terms are x days, but regardless of the invoice you should be aware of the project’s completion status.

Accruing the invoices (or including it in a budget forecast) and paying the invoices are separate things.

It is possible for the OP to accrue the invoices and still not have them in her rolling 5 week cashflow. She said she had accrued them and also had them in her week 6 cashflow - ie, they were on her radar to be paid but just not to be paid within the 5 week horizon, as there wasn't an invoice.

If a supplier fails to invoice on time, then that's a temporary cashflow "bonus", I wouldn't expect Finance to be chasing up whether or not a supplier had bothered to invoice - that's for their (supplier) credit controller to chase up (and if its a significant sum of money for them, they might even call pre-emptively to ask if it will be paid on the due date).

If a supplier was late in sending in an invoice, that's unfortunate (mainly for them) but they wouldn't automatically jump to the front of the payment list; they'd go in the rolling cashflow for payment as usual.

The OP said there is money in the account to pay the invoices but that would be at the expense of paying other suppliers who had managed to send an invoice in on time.
(Possibly that's why she originally said that there wasn't any money to pay the tardy supplier).

And no, you don't need the cash in the bank for every single PO. That's ridiculous; some POs might take months to complete or be delayed. Companies manage their working capital and cashflow so that they don't have to have large cash deposits on hand.

Nope. Sorry. No accountant would think this way.

1)"There are POs yes but we in the accounts don't know if those orders will be fufilled. It is expected that once a supplier has done work they will invoice."

No. That's not the way it should be viewed. You are looking at it all wrong, I'm shocked. Your viewpoint should be proactive, you do know how many po's, what stage they are at, at m/e, whether the supplier invoices at 7 days, 30 days is irrelevant. How can the basic concept escape you?

2)"A statement could have avoided all of this. If the supplier sent one I would have been able to see that we had not received their invoices."

No. You are missing the whole point. It's frightening that you have even typed this. This isn't the way to view this. You should know. It's not up to them to supply the checklist. You should know yourself.

I find you frightening, your lack of insight, comprehension, your trying to blame others, goes all against all accounting principles.

No one will convince me that this is right. Sorry.

This is how small businesses struggle and go under, it’s the end of the month, salaries are due…pay what you owe fgs

If you have had the goods I can't see how you didn't schedule for it, you buy something you know you have to pay for it.

If a supplier fails to invoice on time, then that's a temporary cashflow "bonus", I wouldn't expect Finance to be chasing up whether or not a supplier had bothered to invoice

I agree but chasing up an invoice and knowing one is due are different things.

Project X is finished. PM says ‘Goat - Project X is wrapped up and costs will be coming in from Suppliers A, B, & C’

They should be expected and allowed for. Yes, you obviously aren’t going to be on the phone asking for their invoice but when it arrives it shouldn’t be out of the blue.

It IS in the cash flow - but for week 5/6 as they have not sent an invoice in and the 30 days runs from that.

If they had invoiced earlier it would be in week 2/3 etc.

If they fail to invoice in the week, the payment just gets moved another week forward until it is invoiced and then it crystallises which week it falls into.

This is just how actual cash flows are done.
Which is different to one done annually for say budgets or the statutory cash flow (which is just a mechanical exercise between 2 balance sheet points)

But it isn't out of the blue.

OP said she knew about the PO and it was in her week 6 cashflow horizon.

In OP's position, on receipt of the invoice, I would have just processed the invoice as normal and it would have moved into week 5 of the cashflow when the week rolled forward.

If treasury management allowed (or it was a particularly sensitive supply/supplier relationship), yes, I'd expediate payment but that wouldn't be automatic by any means.

Yes absolutely you would be communicating with the PM but even if communication had been perfect (as per your example), the invoices themselves weren't forthcoming from the supplier, so it wasn't unreasonable of her to keep them in "week 6" of her cashflow.
Because the the supplier might have taken 3 months to send an invoice and OP's company would be daft to keep £200k cash in the bank if it could have been earning more interest elsewhere.

YABU! And if you work for a midsize company, you are taking this a bit too personally!

I'm staggered. How can no one else think that this is all ok? To even view it this way. Tell me it's not just me, please?

@burnoutbabe that’s not how I’d treat it. If I knew the project had completed I’d have it in 30 days from completion (or whatever terms are). If I hadn’t seen the invoice I’d ask the PM if it had gone directly to him but still be expecting it to be paid as due.

I appreciate that may be different from other companies but the key point for me is OP didn’t know the project status and if she had she’d have been on the lookout for the invoice.

Also, I’m used to budget holders who are utterly shit at passing on invoices so often the first I know of an invoice being overdue is when my clerk asks for an urgent payment for an invoice that’s been in someone’s inbox and not passed to us.