Being Charged a €35 late fee for outstanding invoice

Masala

I have a Supplier who invoiced me €150 on 16th Jan 2016.
Unfortunately - we cant seem to find the invoice and their Statement on 28th Feb includes a €35 late fee. I obviously queried same received a copy of original invoice and paid the €150 straight away.

I have their Credit Control on to me now looking for €70!!

The original €35 fee that I did not pay.... and now an additional €35 for the lateness on paying the original €35. I presume next month month it will go to €105.

I tried reasoning with them on same ... but their credit control seems to me based in India as I am getting a lot of polite soft soap but no decision making capabilities.

What would you do in my shows???? I have a stinker of letter ready for their Irish MD ready to go after the weekend!

Bandara

Masala wrote: »

I have a Supplier who invoiced me €150 on 16th Jan 2016.
Unfortunately - we cant seem to find the invoice and their Statement on 28th Feb includes a €35 late fee. I obviously queried same received a copy of original invoice and paid the €150 straight away.

I have their Credit Control on to me now looking for €70!!

The original €35 fee that I did not pay.... and now an additional €35 for the lateness on paying the original €35. I presume next month month it will go to €105.

I tried reasoning with them on same ... but their credit control seems to me based in India as I am getting a lot of polite soft soap but no decision making capabilities.

What would you do in my shows???? I have a stinker of letter ready for their Irish MD ready to go after the weekend!

Firstly you ask for a copy of the credit terms that they (should have) provided with you that outlined these penalties would apply.

Then you tell them to sod off

Then you sever all ties with them

Arseholes are applying a close to 22% penalty on an invoice 14 days late! Not to mention no companies would really pay this until the end of February when they are doing a cheque run

I have to ask, what is the name of the company ? They sound horrifically passive aggressive and Mickey Mouse beyond belief

Joseph

You probably can't name the company given boards' stance on naming things

bucketybuck

Tell them to go jump and find a better supplier.

Masala

bucketybuck wrote: »

Tell them to go jump and find a better supplier.

My letter to MD says exactly that......

To be honest.... I am gobsmacked at the neck of them.

PS... I am talking about a big company here well known in Ireland and England. Not some backstreet roof and gutter repairer!

bpmurray

14 days! My son's company almost went bust because he was waiting for payment for up to a year from blue-chip Irish companies, not mickey-mouse offshores. Tell them to bugger off and that you won't be doing business with them again (make sure they're not the only ones providing this service first though).

Masala

bpmurray wrote: »

14 days! My son's company almost went bust because he was waiting for payment for up to a year from blue-chip Irish companies, not mickey-mouse offshores. Tell them to bugger off and that you won't be doing business with them again (make sure they're not the only ones providing this service first though).

That's why I sitting on letter... will jump on the WWW over the weekend to source an alternative supplier to have my ducks in a row when letter is released!!!

Mrs OBumble

If you can find another supplier who's willing to indulge you losing their invoices and not paying their bills for months, then go ahead and switch to that supplier, and start messing them around.

But assuming that you can't, then you need to cop on to yourself.

Your own supplier setup should have included checking their terms of business, and setting up alerts for yourself if you want to avoid penalties.

Given that step, your own purchase order monitoring should have told you that you were missing an invoice from them. You should have been contacting them for a copy of the invoice before the penalty became due.


And right now, you need to pay your bills!


fyi, I've worked for a company like you. Incompetent managers were forever losing things, forgetting to sign them, unwilling to go outside the monthly payment run to fix their screw-ups, etc. Was a nightmare taking calls from our suppliers and having to apologise to them and say that they would get their money once my boss got her s*** together.

Graham

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

If you can find another supplier who's willing to indulge you losing their invoices and not paying their bills for months, then go ahead and switch to that supplier, and start messing them around.

But assuming that you can't, then you need to cop on to yourself.

Your own supplier setup should have included checking their terms of business, and setting up alerts for yourself if you want to avoid penalties.

Given that step, your own purchase order monitoring should have told you that you were missing an invoice from them. You should have been contacting them for a copy of the invoice before the penalty became due.


And right now, you need to pay your bills!


fyi, I've worked for a company like you. Incompetent managers were forever losing things, forgetting to sign them, unwilling to go outside the monthly payment run to fix their screw-ups, etc. Was a nightmare taking calls from our suppliers and having to apologise to them and say that they would get their money once my boss got her s*** together.

There's rather a large amount of absolutely baseless conclusion jumping crammed into your rant.

How the hell have you managed to stretch a single missing invoice into any of the above?

bucketybuck

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

If you can find another supplier who's willing to indulge you losing their invoices and not paying their bills for months, then go ahead and switch to that supplier, and start messing them around.

You seem bitter about something, but a simple fact of life is that every company stretches credit terms and any company that decides to attempt late fees after just a few weeks better be confident in its customer base.

myshirt

I have seen numerous companies run with 2-4% over whatever the prevailing AIB base lending rate is. And be held up in court time after time after time.

The idea is that there is a cost of finance with an investment in working capital. Companies can't afford for you to stretch credit terms, push a cost of finance on them, and not pay.

€35 base fee is perfectly reasonable. Pay it. And behave like that again and other suppliers will be telling you go get f#cked. Pay the money.

bucketybuck

myshirt wrote: »

€35 base fee is perfectly reasonable.

No it is not, not after 6 weeks of what is probably 30 days credit terms.

Its simply naive to be cast iron in terms of credit control, suppliers need their customers every bit as much as customers need suppliers, ramming on late fees as if they are a bank is a surefire way to lose customers.

myshirt

bucketybuck wrote: »

No it is not, not after 6 weeks of what is probably 30 days credit terms.

Its simply naive to be cast iron in terms of credit control, suppliers need their customers every bit as much as customers need suppliers, ramming on late fees as if they are a bank is a surefire way to lose customers.

At €150 annually, I'd be very glad to lose them. Op has already cost them more money in having to pay staff to contact the op as op is a mess with keeping proper books and records (a company & commercial law offence you know)

Trust me my friend, the problem is on the op's side and the reputational damage they are facing by not paying their bills.

That is the bigger kick in the pants as a business, and by the time you feel the impact, you'll quickly see €35 was the bargain of the century.

And continue with a lack of books and records and one will find oneself in quite an invidious position. A detritus in fact.

Gerry T

You said you didn't get the invoice. I'm presuming it comes by email? What proof have they of you receiving the invoice.
Companies I have worked for ask for confirmation of receipt of an invoice so this type of problem doesn't happen.

If it's the first time this has happened I would think it's their fault. Don't go too strong at you Irl contact, he may be able to write this off, outline the facts and leave out the emotion.

bucketybuck

myshirt wrote: »

At €150 annually, I'd be very glad to lose them. Op has already cost them more money in having to pay staff to contact the op as op is a mess with keeping proper books and records (a company & commercial law offence you know)

Trust me my friend, the problem is on the op's side and the reputational damage they are facing by not paying their bills.

That is the bigger kick in the pants as a business, and by the time you feel the impact, you'll quickly see €35 was the bargain of the century.

And continue with a lack of books and records and one will find oneself in quite an invidious position. A detritus in fact.

Utter rubbish.

For starters you call the OP's book keeping a mess when you have no idea whatsoever if the OP even did anything wrong, its very possible the supplier didn't even post the invoice. Maybe the OP would have paid it if he had actually received it.

And paying staff for credit control is a sunk cost, a cost they have whether they had to contact the OP or not. And of course you skip over the fact that they didn't contact the OP, they just jammed a late fee onto the statement.

And €150 annually? Why do you assume that one invoice represents the OP's entire purchases? He could have ten other invoices from January paid on time, and could have a thousand more to come over the year, why on earth do you assume he will only have that one purchase?

Trust me, the OP's reputation is secure, I deal with a lot of companies and a customer that pays immediately after being asked to is worth their weight in gold. The country is full of businesses playing a game by stretching credit terms month to month, its really naive to think otherwise, and the supplier is only shooting themselves in the foot by trying to act like a bank here. As I said earlier, they will need to be very secure in their customer base.

Your post is a mess quite frankly, so much wrong in so few words. A lack of books? :rolleyes:

Graham

myshirt wrote: »

At €150 annually, I'd be very glad to lose them.

Where was it said that €150 is the annual amount?

myshirt wrote: »

op is a mess with keeping proper books and records (a company & commercial law offence you know).

That guess is based on what?

myshirt wrote: »

Trust me my friend, the problem is on the op's side and the reputational damage they are facing by not paying their bills.

That is the bigger kick in the pants as a business, and by the time you feel the impact, you'll quickly see €35 was the bargain of the century.

And continue with a lack of books and records and one will find oneself in quite an invidious position. A detritus in fact.

Over a single delayed payment of €150, seriously?

There really is a fair amount of international standard conclusion jumping going on in this thread.

I would suggest that if the OP really did have a consistent approach to deliberately delaying payments of outstanding invoices, a €35 late fee would be a fairly common occurrence and this thread would never have been started.

rubberdiddies

Any supplier that outlines such ridiculous terms gets no business from me. I have dealt with hundreds of suppliers very the years and haven't come across such a charge. That being said we pay all our bills on time also.

My customers receive no such penalties from us either. It's ludicrous, particularly after such a short time.

If you can find an alternate supplier then do and let the MD know

VincePP

Masala wrote: »

My letter to MD says exactly that......

To be honest.... I am gobsmacked at the neck of them.

PS... I am talking about a big company here well known in Ireland and England. Not some backstreet roof and gutter repairer!

How about calling the company rep or someone you deal with and explain in a clam and nice manner about it - if the compnay is in anyway decent the charge will be dropped.

You say its a large company with a call centre doing the accounts - my guess is that it is simply accounting software that has added the fee and the call centre people are simply going through the motions.


Getting angry and sending off letters will just make someone chuckle and do nothing about it. - A calm and nicely mannered call will get far better results, everytime.

VincePP

myshirt wrote: »

Trust me my friend,

when someone uses a line like that, it tells me that their posts are utter BS.

gargargar

With larger invoices penalties may not come in to play, but with smaller amounts I think the fee may be reasonable. For a €150 debt the company now have to spend time chasing it. Why should it cost them money? €35 is probably the cost to them to chase you.

zig

I think the penalty is reasonable, sometimes im tempted to start introducing that because not only does it come across as unprofessional to me when someone simply ignores your invoice but personally it annoys me because it basically feels like a sign of disrespect.

Im sure I got a rant in there somewhere

pedronomix

This is a rather simple matter, either you agreed to this sanction in your terms and conditions of trading with them or you did not. If you did, you owe them and vice versa. They would need to be able to prove that they furnished you with a copy of said T&Cs to recover it by the legal route.