Cashflow Thoughts

[vwdan]

More of a musing thread, really, at this stage. Long and short is that my current contract requires a chunk of international travel - and I'm talking Australia in business class (hopefully..!). All good fun, but I have to front the costs and that, combined with fairly long invoice periods, means I'm due to be down a good few quid for a while.

Would you guys just take the hit from your companies funds and accept it? Should I increase the allowance on my company credit card and go that way? I've pondered American Express but only the Platinum seems to give me anything nice and that's £450, and I'm not convinced it's £450 of nice?

Like I say, just a general pondering thread if anybody has anything to add?

[Lance]

Get the BA Amex card. It’s £185 a year but you get a shed load of avios points.

[northernladuk]

When I had to do that I just paid for it from a personal card and expensed it. Used an IHG card and still got 2 weeks worth of stays to use.

[jamesbrown]

Would you guys just take the hit from your companies funds and accept it?

What's the alternative? I mean, you can structure the contract in any way you can agree, which might include an upfront payment before anything is done.

I'm assuming you have a decent warchest by now.

Anyway, similar circumstances for me (more U.S. and Canada though), and I take the upfront hit. I typically wait 30 or 60 days to get paid, sometimes longer. It's definitely worth getting their DUNS number and verifying the credit risk, but unless you're contracting with a small business, they probably won't offer you a ton of flexibility over their standard B2B T&Cs.

Are they paying YourCo in GBP?

[jamesbrown]

Get a TransferWise account too (business and personal). Super-easy to set-up, manage, and use and you'll get close to interbank rates.

[vwdan]

What's the alternative? I mean, you can structure the contract in any way you can agree, which might include an upfront payment before anything is done.

I suppose I phrased it a bit badly, but I was wondering about options such as the above - reward cards etc.

I'm assuming you have a decent warchest by now.

Of course! Paying it is no problem in theory, like I say, was just wondering what other people did - so may get myself an Amex card.

Anyway, similar circumstances for me (more U.S. and Canada though), and I take the upfront hit. I typically wait 30 or 60 days to get paid, sometimes longer. It's definitely worth getting their DUNS number and verifying the credit risk, but unless you're contracting with a small business, they probably won't offer you a ton of flexibility over their standard B2B T&Cs.

Are they paying YourCo in GBP?

Yeah, they're massive so no real concerns in getting the cash - all in GBP, yeah. Thanks for the TransferWise hint, too - will definitely sort that out. (See that's why I asked ) Wish I'd have had that before, now having read up.