30 days invoice

[william 0121]

if started job on 1st august and received invoice on that day for the week work. 

1st august - 4 august ( 4 days ) would my invoice for 30 days start on from 1st or 4th 

just checking is it on completion or would it start from taking the job on. 

 

thanks 

 

[David Morison]

Invoices should be paid within 30 days of receipt.

IME, it's more normal to send the invoice on completion of the work, unless otherwise agreed at time of booking.

[sandall]

I put "Payment terms - 7 days from invoice" on all my invoices. Doesn't necessarily work, but it means I don't have to wait 6 weeks before chasing.

[Stuart91]

20 hours ago, sandall said:

I put "Payment terms - 7 days from invoice" on all my invoices. Doesn't necessarily work, but it means I don't have to wait 6 weeks before chasing.

That technique will work for some individual customers and organisations, but not councils or large corporates. 

What's stopping you chasing an invoice at day 31 anyway?

[sandall]

4 hours ago, Stuart91 said:

What's stopping you chasing an invoice at day 31 anyway?

Laziness. Funnily enough my main customer these days is a large local authority, who in the last year have paid in anything from 3 to 28 days, depending on how quickly people sign things off & whether they catch or miss the weekly payments run.

[paulears]

There's a racecourse near me that does 90 day terms, take it or leave it. Most leave it.

[David Duffy]

3 hours ago, paulears said:

There's a racecourse near me that does 90 day terms, take it or leave it. Most leave it.

I would change my terms for them - to money up front !

[ImagineerTom]

3 hours ago, paulears said:

There's a racecourse near me that does 90 day terms, take it or leave it. Most leave it.

Two red flags in business, any company that factors their invoices or insists on anything more than 30day terms is living entirely on credit and barely keeping their head above water. We wont deal with either. 

[paulears]

I suppose any business model that has a very small number of money generating days a year, impacted by weather, must have serious cash flow implications. What annoys first time invoicers is that they screw people down for prices, and only then reveal the terms - so few local suppliers get caught twice, and those that get squeezed shout loud and clear about it.

[sandall]

17 hours ago, David Duffy said:

I would change my terms for them - to money up front !

There was a period of several years when a lot of my customers came into that category, though events often ended up with heated after-show discussions with the man with the roll of notes (or, occasionally, the bride's mother).

Re Paull's point - when I first started freelancing for the BBC (rather than being on the payroll) I was told that what mattered in a BBC contract was which side applies the most recent T&Cs (basically you ignore theirs & insist on your own). I've no idea whether this is part of normal contract law (or even current BBC practise), but it worked for me.

Edited September 6, 2023 by sandall

[Robin D]

When I was running my (unrelated to theatre) business all my quotes contained my T&C's, one clause of which said that my T&C's were the definitive set for this contract. 

[kalmatthew]

13 hours ago, Robin D said:

When I was running my (unrelated to theatre) business all my quotes contained my T&C's, one clause of which said that my T&C's were the definitive set for this contract. 

Unfortunately the PO you recived would be seen as a counter offer and is likely to have a very similar clause. In the battle of the forms the last circulated normally wins. More detail here because as always with the law there are edge cases. 

[sandall]

Interesting article. Rather suggests that anything written in a PO will always be superseded by the subsequent invoice.

 

[Robin D]

An interesting read. Shows the importance of agreeing terms and getting the agreement written into the specific contract. 

[kalmatthew]

39 minutes ago, sandall said:

Interesting article. Rather suggests that anything written in a PO will always be superseded by the subsequent invoice.

 

That wasn't my understanding as later on in the document it says terms and conditions printed on invoices are unlikely to form part of the contract and the wider section implies the invoice won't help as it would be after the service was provided. 

 

18 minutes ago, Robin D said:

An interesting read. Shows the importance of agreeing terms and getting the agreement written into the specific contract. 

I think this is probably the major takeaway from this. Especially if your a small business dealing with a larger one who are likely to have an in house commercial or legal team that's likely all over this stuff. 

Edited September 8, 2023 by kalmatthew
Don't seem to be able to add arbitrary quotes anymore