why are the biggest companies the worst payers?

[GingerIsBest]

I am self employed and run a small business with multiple corporate clients and yes, my bills are not necessarily cheap. But I am so tired of my huge multinational corporate clients paying late or slow. To be fair, most are pretty good, but there's always one or two. And what frustrates me the MOST is that they just ignore requests for updates. I have one invoice that is 2 weeks overdue. I emailed, nothing. Then I emailed again and got an out of office so emailed the email address provided in that. Nothing. So now I've had to email again.

This particular client blatantly admitted to me during covid they were delaying payments to suppliers as much as possible. The man who told me that ws clearly embarrassed about it and did his best to get me paid quicker, but I think it's disgusting.

Not looking for solutions, just solidarity from anyone else in this situation.

And what frustrates me the MOST is that they just ignore requests for updates

I used to work in payables and one of the things I always made sure to do was keep people updated. IME it's not the fact that we might be paying late but that they were sending emails into a void and no-one would reply. In AP you're a bit between a rock and a hard place because you're the first point of contact for suppliers and you get all the irate calls caused by the CFO saying 'Delay payment as long as possible' - and yes, ours did that as well during lockdown because no money was coming in.

Thank you @MrsDanversGlidesAgain You totally get it.

In the case of this client, trust me, money was NOT a problem and it was clear that the AP guy was mortified by the company's policy. And certainly now, a few years later, they've had their best ever year so no, there's no reason to believe that they can't afford it. This is a global professional services firm....!

I have actually had a response this afternoon to say that it's been approved and they've had sign off to pay it today, so that is a huge relief. cash flow is a big problem at the moment. More than anything, I appreciated the apologies for not getting a response sooner.

I was furloughed in 2020 and because my work phone was patched to my home landline I fielded a lot of plaintive calls about 'I can't get a reply about our invoice from your colleague, what's going ooooooooon...' and I could only apologise and tell them to keep trying.

I've spent a lot of time being mortified by finance higher ups.

Exactly the same here - massive international - currently waiting for payment. They have a supplier portal which is utterly useless as the payment was approved a month ago but no indication on when the actual transfer will be!

And the last time I emailed accounts payable it took them 10 days to respond!!!

And the last time I emailed accounts payable it took them 10 days to respond!!!

Tsk tsk tsk

The big ones really are the worst. You are supposed to be so grateful that they would deign to have you as a supplier, that you will put up with waiting for months and months for payment. Some of the supermarkets and other retailers can be the worst, especially for small food producers. They have you over a barrel. If you want them to stock your product, you have to abide by their terms.

Ruddy cheek.

I had a massive bust-up with a large and extremely well-known brewery chain that simply refused to pay on time. They would pay on 90 days if we were lucky. Gits. I suspended their trade account, so their small local branch (who bought things from us) had to pay in advance or lump it.

I would suggest calling rather than emailing, as it is much easier to ignore an email. Note the response, call back if needed, keep nagging and do not hesitate to suspend service if not paid on time. Make sure you have agreed payment terms at the point of taking the order, and ensure the invoice states due date.

Also call a few days before due date, check they have the invoice, ask when it will be paid.
Squeaky wheel gets most grease…

We've had an invoice outstanding for nearly a year from one client - total arse of a company - luckily it wasn't a huge amount, we avoid doing work for them and if we did we'd have penalty clauses in the contract.

We cc the actual client into communications with accounts payable - we work hard to have a good relationship with the client and they tend to get quite embarrassed by the lack of payment and they usually have enough clout to get things moving. They all seem to despise the accounts dept.

A YEAR?? an actual year? I'd be under the desk with embarrassment if I were those payables people. I'd have expected a notice before action and a block on supplies months ago if that were me (and be working to get you paid if there weren't good reasons for the holdup).

How some companies get away with it I don't know.

The biggest uk road network construction company bankrupt my dads business and left him in debt it destroyed my parent’s marriage so I totally relate

Property side of large supermarket beginning with T. Awful. Never on their system before 90 days and then a convoluted sign off system extending payment time even further. If you complained, their attitude was one of "there are plenty more suppliers out there". Morally and ethically deficient. I still don't shop there. I doubt they have changed.

Same here. Utter counts to get payment from. Multi multi million companies stalling paying my small business.

I work as admin in one of these multi national s, our standard payment terms are shocking. 60 days, end of month plus 4 days. So if you invoice on the 1st, it’s over 3 months. And because they outsourced AP, it’s shocking service, payments are often late (!!!) and we have no one we can call, only raise a ticket. If I was a small business I wouldn’t supply them unless I had up front payment.

I’ve worked for three FTSE100 companies over the last 15 years. The current one and the last one are smaller and the processes aren’t bad. If a payment is late I know who to speak to and we are usually able to get it sorted out pretty quickly. But the first one I worked for was a giant and it was awful. If I had a new supplier I had to first get them approved by a team in Luxembourg via a ticket system which took an age. Then had to get them set up as a new supplier for payment with a team in India via another ticket system which took another age. And eventually I could send the invoice for payment which was also never processed quickly. The most annoying thing was not being able to speak to somebody to find out what was happening. Luckily I only worked with suppliers in other large companies who could put up with the slow process a bit better but I wouldn’t recommend a small
supplier work with that company. Awful!

Ugh I get this! (Self employed music teacher) I now have in the terms that if they pay late there’s a 5% charge.

The worst I had was a school that paid me, on average, 4 weeks late (the worst was over 100 days late!). Then they tried to say the terms of payment, to which I pointed out that they wouldn’t hire a plumber & argue terms of payment. They consistently paid me later than their own terms anyway so it didn’t matter. In the end I dropped the school and cited lack of payment as the reason.

I completely feel your pain!

Minimum 56 days payout from multinational I worked for before.

that included for employee expenses. As employees we had to keep 10k in our bank accounts to avoid it affecting our credit ratings of always paying late. And if you did have to pay late - credit card interest 20% ish - you had to fight for DAYS each month to get the company to cover it.

You could get a ‘company credit cardI’ but it was in your name and your credit, the company just got the points.

I imagine external vendors they were at least 3 months in the ‘processing’.

You can and should build in late fees etc. to your contacts. They are typically accepted and will get you paid faster.