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?

But how does one look out for the invoice?

Do you mean chase the supplier for it?

I have occasionally fallen foul of the "sent to the ceo" invoices but he is well trained now.

But really no one is chasing suppliers to send invoices to pay them. That seems odd unless it's something like "you must pay the bill for the servers every month without fail else they get turned off".

@burnoutbabe I suppose I’m just saying that I’d be expecting it, and notice NOT having received it, and I’d ask ‘why haven’t we had the invoice’ to the PM as potentially they maybe some issue I don’t know about, or, as I’ve come to expect, it’s in his bloody inbox.

The way OP described her 6 week schedule made it seem like a catch-all for all projects without an invoice, not scheduled for week 6.

She said she wasn’t expecting it as she didn’t know the project was finished. This, to me, is the bit I just don’t get when it’s a £200k payment.

And I actually WOULD chase a supplier for an invoice that I knew was due in some circumstances. I don’t know if there’s been a glitch or miscommunication somewhere. Most of our suppliers have their relationship with the budget holder and therefore I wouldn’t want a delay to affect business relationships.

This whole process needs an audit, once you have reports for all process stages and mismatches things should be better

It doesn't even need an audit. Just good business sense would help.

Aren't you the expert here?
This is literally your job to know how to handle this.

Yanbu

It's their mistake.

I think a reasonable supplier would apply the usual 30 day terms (or whatever period they are), for you to pay the invoices. Particularly at that value.

It's definitely worth emailing her head of department.

Make sure everyone is copied in, so you've covered your arse, because there are obviously payment time implications involved.

The way of managing invoices sounds totally normal to me, and the fact that finance don't know the exact timing for when every invoice will be paid also sounds totally normal.

In a decent sized business 6 figure invoices are not unusual or interesting, there are hundreds of them. I think some people aren't understanding that.

It also might be a good idea to put a policy in place for supplier payments which incorporates their company size, obviously 200k delayed to a small company can have catastrophic results whereas a massive corporation with forgiving cashflow might not mind a few days extra on their terms.

Of course you pay them now - they are overdue! It doesn't matter if you received the original invoices or not, you must have know an invoice would be coming at some stage. I used to pay accounts as part of my job and these would have been paid asap.

YANBU. Most pay say you're being unreasonable, but most won't have a clue how an invoicing system works. They're probably thinking along the lines of them owing someone £50 for a day out!

Every engineering company I have worked for has a "system". You raise a purchase order, get various people to sign it (which takes ages), the order gets put through, we get the tooling/materials or whatever we ordered, then once received and we're happy with it, the supplier sends the invoice and it goes through the "invoicing" system, gets matched to the purchase order and paid.

The business T&Cs usually say how many days from receipt of invoice that it actually gets paid. What is your agreed turn around on payment? You need to stick to whatever T&Cs were agreed in the contract with this company.

Companies can't just store £200,000 in a current account. It gets moved to an interest account, and hence the procedure in place.

If this company have only just sent the invoice and the T&Cs say you will pay invoices within X days, then just stick to what was agreed.

I think that’s shitty, you knew what needed to be paid, simply schedule them for payment. Yes you can mess with them, but it is likely they are a supplier for a reason, so keep the relationship good, sometimes things go wrong. A good relationship you work together.

What a condescending little post. How cringe. Putting people down like that.

ours are payment based on goods issue date. Every company is different.

you can answer the question without attacking other posters.

Excuse me???

Every business will have a business to business contract (B2B) which you agree to.

I'm not putting anyone down. A lot of people clearly don't understand B2B contracts. No one is saying the money isn't owed, but if the B2B contract says payment after X days from invoice, then that's what happens.

Just because a company has been really late sending an invoice, doesn't mean they can just demand £200k immediately. The same procedure applies.

How can your forecast your cash flow if you don’t know what invoices are due and when?

And if your cash flow is so tightly managed then you absolutely should know the timings of large invoices.

The place I work now is small with massive cash reserves. I could get an invoice for £5m and pay without blinking but I’d still know about it and when it was expected.

OP is managing cash and this payment creates a problem. Any company who manages their cash this tightly should know when large invoices are on their way. The fact OP mentions the value and it causing a problem shows that it’s a significant cost for them.

You didn't think I meant I'd become insolvent myself, did you?!

I was talking about becoming one of the accountants who sort out the finances of companies who have gone into liquidation. They get paid first in line no matter what, and can earn up to £200-£300 an hour...

You're probably covered with this particular payment since you can prove when they invoiced you, but we haven't seen your contract.

More generally, why aren't your staff marking orders received so that management accounts can reflect the associated expenses and accruals? And given a rollocking everytime an invoice lands for a completed order without a correctly updated PO.

And if they had invoiced you on time, how were you paying it if you don't have the money?

@blacksax

No, no I did understand. We both should've specialised in insolvency, we'd be raking it in.