Unpaid invoices

[Weedsnseeds1]

I am a contractor who provides an inspection service against an accredited standard on behalf of several different companies.
One of these companies owes me a substantial amount of money for completed services.
I have two invoices dating back to 2016 that are unpaid. The member of administration staff that dealt with invoices at that time left and despite repeated requests, the department that took over the payments haven't paid.
They have paid invoices since, but not these.
At the beginning of this year a new system was introduced, where a form has to be completed in advance of the work, guestimating costs, a PO is raised, invoice submitted, rejected as a mis-match, resubmitted to person who raised PO to amend PO number and sent back to me to re-submit to accounts. A complete faff and designed to delay payment in my opinion.
They have ignored all requests for PO since April, meaning that I am unable to invoice for the work.
It has got to the point where I intend to put in a claim to County Court.
However, please can someone advise if I can claim for work since April, as this has not actually been invoiced as they are preventing me from doing so by refusing to issue the PO?
So, strictly speaking they aren't unpaid invoices, they have been blocked from being invoiced.
They have invoiced their clients for the work I have completed, including my expenses ( flights, hotels, rental cars etc).
There is no issue with my work and it has all been completed on time.
Have they found a loop hole to get out of paying and also prevent me from claiming payment from the court?

so you have sent invoices but they rejected them? bastards

No, their procedure is that invoices must have a PO. Despite filling in their bloody form and chasing over and over, they won't supply a PO to even allow an invoice to be sent.

Have you suggested to them that you approach their clients direct for payment, as they seem to be having problems?

With my other clients, I send them an invoice, they pay it. Simple.

tbh just send them the invoice and then take them to court. that it then doesn't match their internal processes is their problem. you quoted for and provided services and are eligible for payment.

and consider not working for them again.

They are a huge multinational company. Not on the verge of bankruptcy or anything. They bill the client for my work and expenses, with profit added. They will have already been paid.
I cannot work directly for their clients as it is an accredited scheme, so the work must be done through a certification body, accredited to the scheme.

Ok. So you should claim for the unpaid invoices and for the work done but not invoices as I just enrichment. Write a precaution letter first instead of wasting court time. Most people pay after the first letter.

Thanks redshoes. I won't be taking on any more work with them, I just want to be paid for the work I have already done.
Strangely I also do work for overseas offices of the same company, they have no problem paying ( or requirement for PO in advance) it's just the UK office.

Sorry racecar what do you mean by enrichment?

Just send your invoice for your work. Their accounting system is just that. They have not followed their own procedure, you have done the work, so you invoice them for it. If they wish to issue a belated PO to staple to it for their system, fine.
So :
Invoice
Letter before Action
Proceedings.

Thank you notwithstanding, I'll give it a go.
I have full paper trail of all requests for payment / PO.
I forgot to mention another point. The accounts department recently sent me an email saying they are "not allowed" to accept bank account details on invoices as it isn't"proof" and I need an official letter from the bank.
They have been paying into my company bank account for three years prior to this!

notwiththeseknees sorry, autocorrect fail!

I would say that since the PO system was started after you issued the invoices it doesn't apply. Do you have any terms and conditions they would've signed?

Contract states 30 day payment

From now on PO up front, no PO no work.

I know. Won't be accepting any more work from them ( no shortage of work elsewhere, including other offices of the same company), however I feel obliged to compete work already agreed as it impacts the actual sites inspected - their customers will delist them if they don't have the certificate I am auditing. They won't be able to switch short notice to another certification body as the auditors are booked several months in advance. In addition, auditors can only perform inspections if they are qualified for various categories and there aren't many with the range of categories I am approved for, so the sites are going to struggle to find an alternative.
There's maybe 150 people world wide, if that, that can offer the same range of categories and services that I can. There are obviously many more that can offer part of the service, but then you need two or more of them, in the same place at the same time, to deliver the service, which costs a lot more.

When you tell the company you get contracts from that you are going to court mention that you will, in order to maintain your professional reputation, be obliged to write to the sites involved warning them of the difficulties involved in you auditing them in future.

however I feel obliged to compete work already agreed as it impacts the actual sites inspected - their customers will delist them if they don't have the certificate I am auditing. They won't be able to switch short notice to another certification body as the auditors are booked several months in advance.

I would refuse, in writing, to complete the current work for them until they have paid you in full for the outstanding invoices. The fall out from the lack of certification is their problem, not yours. The way things are going, there's no guarantee they'll pay for you for this work either (barring court action).

Their new payment/PO seems insane. How on earth can a business run like that.

Write a letter to the CEO....copy all correspondence received/sent etc. One email from him to his accounts dept should get things sorted.

Their new payment/PO seems insane. How on earth can a business run like that?

large corporations can.
I once worked for a small supplier of a big multinational. they only ever paid upon 'letter before action' despite our contract saying 14 days...

however I feel obliged to compete work already agreed as it impacts the actual sites inspected - their customers will delist them if they don't have the certificate I am auditing.

Get a backbone. You have leverage here SO USE IT! Get all your past work invoiced (you don't need a customer's permission to invoice for goodness sake! you can always re-print them later with the PO), send them a statement of outstandings and don't send them any more reports until they have paid up in full. Do not play nice, use your advantage.
Then drop them.

I was just wondering if this company is a certification body then do they themselves not have operational standards that they have to conform to in this regard and if they are failing to do so could UKAS get involved? Just a thought probably not a great one

UKAS would only be interested in the governance of the scheme I audit, I think.
However, if the office is certificated for 9001 or something it could be a non-conformance there...

Well, I have sent invoices and letter before action, so will see what happens

That’s odd, I have to raise POs for my department and have to ensure the invoice numbers etc uniform up otherwise accounts reject it.

Wouldn’t stop the contractors chasing me, the pressure would be on me from both sides, contractors and accounts to sort it out. Accounts are slow at paying but wouldn’t let it go past 30 days.