Invoice Payments ALWAYS late

[anthony]

Howdy all....

So my current payment terms are invoice date + 30 day.

Last 5 invoices have ALWAYS breached the 30 day payment term by roughly ~8days. Getting slightly peeved at this, since, in my eyes, 30 days is enough time to get whatever is needed to sort out and pay on time.

Now I have been in contact with the client and i get the usual tulip excuses... reading about the "The Late Payment of Commercial Debts Regulations 2013" I am still none the wiser as to when this "kicks in" i.e. is it on day 31 or X days?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Cheers y'all

[TheFaQQer]

The Late Payment of Commercial Debts Regulations 2013 - Pay on Time

Have a look there, work out how much they owe you for each late payment, and invoice for them.

If you are worried about upsetting the apple cart while you still have outstanding invoices with the agency / client - you have seven years to chase the debt

[anthony]

The Late Payment of Commercial Debts Regulations 2013 - Pay on Time

Have a look there, work out how much they owe you for each late payment, and invoice for them.

If you are worried about upsetting the apple cart while you still have outstanding invoices with the agency / client - you have seven years to chase the debt

Cool so it is from day 31 untill they finally end up paying.... cheers for that

[northernladuk]

I take it you are direct and not through an agent?

I was through a consultancy at a gig and they were always late by 2 or 3 days on 30 days payment terms. Didn't really bother me but some contractors got quite upset by it. Next set of renewals came through with 35 day payment terms To be fair they were never late again. Must have been an issue paying on weekends or something. Made me laugh when I saw it anyway.

[tractor]

...

Could be working days vs. calendar days?

[jamesbrown]

Is this via an agency? If so, I'd probably be mildly irritated too. If it's direct, welcome to reality. Payment terms of 30 days, running a few days late, is pretty damn good, sadly It's not uncommon to have 60- or even 90-day payment terms, followed by chasing.

[anthony]

Yeah direct with ClientCo... 2 or 3 days late is not a problem, but when you're going 1 week+ then its getting a bit more than an issue....

Contract says "invoice date + 30 days = payment date" (clearly not like that )

[psychocandy]

I've known direct people and it always seems to be direct that causes the problem rather than via an agency.

One place I worked lost a VERY good guy because, in the end, he just got pissed off with chasing it every single time. Weeks late on 30 days EVERY time. In the end, he said, it was just wasting hours of his time chasing it all the time.

[Willapp]

Just for the sake of balance, my first ever contract was direct and I was lucky enough to get 7 day terms on my invoices. However I submitted the invoices weekly on Fridays and generally they were paid the following Monday!

Obviously this isn't the norm but it does show that direct != terrible payments.

[earningacrust]

Pretty much everyone who goes direct has to spend a lot of time chasing payments.

A lot of the larger clients in particular have accounts payable departments who revel in not paying until the 2nd or 3rd demand.

30 day payment terms, even if paid a week later is still pretty good. In reality, 60 or 90 days is much more typical.

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