Late payment via invoice

[zonino]

It's incorporated across various acts but if you're involved in any kind of distance selling (website, email, telephone) or ratify or form a contract across any of those mediums you're required to include a host of company information (full trading name, address's, VAT details, professional memberships) and provide your customer with a copy of your T&Cs right at the start. There's less strict requirements for pure business-to-business transactions but it is good practise to do all of this anyway. There's also a grey area as to exactly where someone stops being a consumer and starts being a business.

On this forum where a significant chunk of the posters regularly supply "consumers" - am dram groups, weddings, local bands and the vast majority of posters conduct the bulk of their business via email/website/phone I'd say that most people reading this thread are required to issue this info.

Face to face retail transactions don't have quite such onerous terms placed on them

 

Aah, now company information (required under the Companies Act 2006) is not the same as terms and conditions.

 

I assume you're refering to The Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 7, which requires certain information regarding the contract to be provided BUT my understanding (check with an appropriately qualified lawyer etc) is that does not require a specific set of separate T&Cs to be provided to a company. It makes perfect sense for someone to use a standard set of T&Cs, but the law does not require that.

 

again, not a lawyer etc.

[kerry davies]

That is more or less a discussion on semantics, for 99.9% of cases this is the law;

Where there is neither an agreement in place nor custom and practice in operation, the law sets a default period of 30 days.

This period starts from whichever of the following is later:

the date on which the goods are delivered or the service is performed

the date on which the customer receives notice of the amount of the debt

 

Agreement means between both/all parties and one party cannot demand that the 30 day period is suspended, it is the law. If you don't agree to 90 days they have to pay in 30 or break the law, simples. What happens then to relationships, your legal bills and future work is something completely different.

 

The best advice is given above that first quote.

You can agree any credit period you want with customers but you should agree the payment period before the transaction takes place. Don't assume your usual terms apply as the payment period should be part of your negotiation on pricing and is the period agreed between parties. This agreement can be verbal but it should preferably be in writing.

[richard]

I get quite annoyed when people work for me and then, once they invoice, they announce they have 7 or 14 day terms. If they want to negotiate pre-job then fine but they can't just announce it!

[dee_84]

I get quite annoyed when people work for me and then, once they invoice, they announce they have 7 or 14 day terms. If they want to negotiate pre-job then fine but they can't just announce it!

 

I always check they the company I'm working for is OK with a shorter invoice period than 30 days, and I'd expect the company to give me fair warning they want longer than 30 days to pay me (fair warning being before the work starts!)

 

There is now an update on the situation which I started this thread about. I have (finally, and after much chasing) received an email from the company saying they will settle my invoice with everybody else's "at the end of the month". Not quite sure why she can't just transfer the money over and marked the invoice as paid, it can't really be that hard can it?

[ramdram]

It may be "she" has the money on deposit somewhere and any interest to be paid relies on the full term of the deposit sort of thing...basically she may have no liquidity at all with which to pay her outgoings.

 

You have to remember that you may simply be one of dozens...and your invoice may not be anywhere near the most she has to pay. In other words you don't matter and she don't care.

 

Life's like that.

[dee_84]

It may be "she" has the money on deposit somewhere and any interest to be paid relies on the full term of the deposit sort of thing...basically she may have no liquidity at all with which to pay her outgoings.

 

You have to remember that you may simply be one of dozens...and your invoice may not be anywhere near the most she has to pay. In other words you don't matter and she don't care.

 

Life's like that.

 

No, as I'm sure I mentioned earlier in this threat the whole thing is bank rolled by a multi millionaire, they have the money. I tend to be very patient with small companies who might struggle financially to pay on time because they are leading a pretty much hand to mouth existence. These guys have messed me about with this invoice, and not communicated with me even though I have left them numerous messages and emails. "She" is a financial administrator, it's not her money, she just moves it around.

[djw1981]

You can be a multi-millionaire and asset/investment rich but cash poor. If all the capital is tied up in bonds / investments which realise at month end, then thats when they have cash to pay with.

[ramdram]

Well allow me to assure you that a "multi millionaire" did not get that way by being soft...or paying "you" on demand.

 

I used to work in the property maintenance game in Oxon and Berks for a few years on a self employed basis. One place I worked at was owned by a "fairly well off" bloke who had a central accounts office in London. I used to wait for weeks for a cheque and used to get fobbed off with "the cheque print run has finished for this month" or "we only pay out once a month and your invoice must have been missed for this month".

 

Then I learned from another of his employees, locally, that in fact the invoices got settled every fortnight; basically they were taking the p!55. I soon learned that the way to get him to pay for late payments was to simply "preload" the invoice.

 

The local manager bod had every sympathy for myself and simply passed my invoices as "approved for payment" sort of thing. Nobody ever queried my invoices, especially as I could sometimes turn out at a moments notice to deal with what was for them a disaster...leaking tap or duff ball valve down to a broken trestle table.

 

(Top tip as I recall all this now btw...if you ever end up doing this sort of thing to make ends meet when waiting for "real" work, always, always take a vacuum cleaner and clean up as you go...the gratitude from the ladies was marvellous to behold, I really cannot stress this enough. Learn the single handed drilling technique with the vac' nozzle just under the bit.)

 

So "life lesson", just 'cos someone is rich does not imply (s)he wants to make you rich too. As far as they are concerned there are plenty of tradesmen out there who are desperate for work...and are not going to push for money at the possible expense of not getting more work in the future.

 

And you certainly are right "she" just moves the money around...into short term loans to other people. Paying "you" or anyone else is nowhere near the top of her agenda, managing her budget is her main concern not to mention keeping her job.

 

Never ever forget you need her more than she needs you. How many times in this forum have we read of complaints from folk who find "plumb" jobs are awarded to interns on an experience only payback basis because said interns have access to their own funds or the Bank of M&D.

 

"Olympics" ring any bells...?

[dee_84]

I'm not asking them to be soft, or pay me on demand, or make me rich. I'm asking them to honor my invoice, so I can pay my rent and not end up homeless. As it happens they now have, it seems they didn't want me to start adding interest to the amount owed.

 

Agreeing to pay somebody for a job and then not paying them so you can keep hold of the money for a bit longer and earn more interest on it is fraud. What these people are doing is not only wrong and immoral, it's illegal.

 

I have to say I'm a bit shocked at the attitudes of some of people on this forum. We have every right to push for our money when it becomes over due, it's our money and companies keeping it in investments which only pay out at the end of the month means that we as freelancers get poorer as they get richer at our expense. I have many friends who work outside the industry either as freelancers, or using freelancers and they are always appalled when they hear about they way some companies think they can just not pay invoices, or make a habit of paying freelancers late.

 

As for saying the company not having the cash to pay its contractors because it's money is tied up in investments, that's poor planning on their behalf. In this instance the company knew they were going to have to pay this invoice to somebody (and all the other invoices related to paying operators, and cast, and crew) when they began planning the run. They had a calender of show dates, a number of people they needed to pay, and knew how much they were going to pay them. As my invoice was due a month ago and they knew they were going to have to pay me, they shouldn't have had a problem doing so.

 

I came on here asking for help and advice on a few points I needed clearing up, some of you have been very helpful. Some of you less so. I'm now not surprised that so many companies think they can get away with not paying people on time. There may well be other people willing to do the work and get treated shoddily by companies, but surely that's the problem? If only a few of us stand up for ourselves then everybody will continue to get messed around. Oddly this isn't my first freelance contract (by a long way), it's just my first experience of a complex situation, and I reached out to a group of people who's views I thought I could rely on, and maybe had similar experiences.

 

I'm sorry that I appear to have angered a some of you so much. But thank you to those who helped, either by posting on the, or DMing about it.

[timsabre]

I don't think anyone is defending slow payment... it is, in my view, not the honourable way to do business with someone, but unfortunately it happens a lot.

If you have done lots of freelance work without having any trouble with a slow payer, you've been very lucky.

[dee_84]

I don't think anyone is defending slow payment... it is, in my view, not the honourable way to do business with someone, but unfortunately it happens a lot.

If you have done lots of freelance work without having any trouble with a slow payer, you've been very lucky.

 

It wasn't that they were a slow payer, they're easy enough to deal with. It was that they'd messed me around about it, and then when I'd fixed problems they'd created they stopped communicating with me and didn't pay. :)

[GR1]

As a metter of interest:

 

What date did you start the job?

 

What date did you finish the job?

 

What date did you receive the cheque?

[dbuckley]

In my scumbag contrator days, I worked for a little part of a large global bank. This little part was largely independent of the parent, and had terrible accounting software, so they had a process of just getting the invoices through the system. One got paid in three days. Paper in, money out, great.

 

Eventually they got corporate's SAP system foisted upon them. Invoices were then paid on the due date. So they had the benefit of the money earning interest in their account for three weeks. Many invoices times many pounds for three weeks and a little bit of interest all adds up...

[zonino]

I don't think anyone is defending slow payment... it is, in my view, not the honourable way to do business with someone, but unfortunately it happens a lot.

If you have done lots of freelance work without having any trouble with a slow payer, you've been very lucky.

 

It wasn't that they were a slow payer, they're easy enough to deal with. It was that they'd messed me around about it, and then when I'd fixed problems they'd created they stopped communicating with me and didn't pay. :)

 

of course by invoicing for work that you hadn't completed, some might say that you were causing problems ;-)

 

trying to piece together the dates from your original post,

 

• 
   
  
• re-invoiced 3 days before work completion date
  
• work completion date
  
• emailed 1 week after to follow up
  
• blue-room post 1 week after that email - 17th august
  
• blue-room post saying you've been paid - 30th August
   
  

 

so that would appear to suggest you've actually been paid 30 days after the end of the work. A 30 day payment window is reasonable in the eyes of the law (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/20/section/4). Of course, if you don't think you have a commercial debt, then you probably aren't self employed, so should be paid on the payroll via PAYE...

 

of course, if you've agreed IN ADVANCE for immediate payment on completion (and sending an invoice with this stated does not constitute an agreement) then that is out of the window.

[techsupport]

Despite the legislation a colleague of mine tells me Whitbreads have a 90 day payment policy - and this really stretches things - especially as he has an agent, so he doesn't get his until the agent has deducted commission and passed the remainder on. Has anyone had this 90 days confirmed? I don't know how they get away with it if true?

 

I found out last year EMI has a 90 day payment term, big companies always push small business's around, you have to stand your ground and say No sometimes, or start taking cards, yes it costs a bit but there is very little paperwork, and the best bit... no chasing the non payers.

cards can be processed online with a variety of different clearers.

 

The phrase "how would like to pay", or "which card are you using" works wonders...

 

 

I have seen on a plant hire company invoice a 10% flat rate charge has been added to the bill, if paid within terms this may be deducted.

 

Apparently some clients stretch the credit line and then pay the extra 10%, seems like quite a good wheeze.

 

We are a small company, I know that some of you are freelancers which makes it very difficult, you could try online checking of the client, it cost a bit (cheapest place is at Companies House) it will tell you a bit, at least you can check if the client is up to date and is filing their papers correctly.

 

Or you contact a credit agency and try to blag a deal, it is possible to get blocks of company checks for not much money.

 

I was done years ago by the debacle at Gearhouse / PSL, it really hurt... , nearly lost the firm, but thankfully managed to survive, many did not.

I am much more careful now, we now do a lot on cards.

 

 

There is no universal answer, it's case of go carefully, and if its a first job, be even more careful, if it smells bad, walk away.