Payment - late again

Apr05

Payment - late again

Got very frustrated today with one of the agencies that I do business with. We have had a business relationship for about a year and a half now and each and every time I invoice them payment is always late, and that’s even on 30 days terms. Anyway, last month, enough was enough and when payment was 7 days late I sent them an email saying that if I didn’t receive payment in a couple of days I would take my links down until such a time as I received payment. That seemed to do the job as I had a phone call straight back from the Account Director apologising profusely etc etc. But then I had a call from the accounts department themselves whose arrogance really shocked me. They basically told me that they have “hundreds of blue chip clients” who always send a reminder that payment is due and accept that payment can sometimes be up to 4 weeks late. “But that’s just not acceptable” I said, “If I spent as much time as I did chasing up invoices into something constructive like SEO then I get to number 1 in Google for ‘casinos’ or something”. That didn’t seem to cut the mustard, so I asked the accountant guy whose responsibility it was to make payment. He then told me that it was mine to chase up and remind them, and to be prepared for late payment. Unbelievable.

Anyway, after a heated debate I told him that I was now enforcing a zero tolerance policy (well almost zero tolerance as I’m a nice guy really) and that if next month’s payment was more than a couple of days late then the links would be coming down. “No problem it WON’T be late” he shouted at me. So, payment time has come round once again and guess what? Payment is 4 days late so far. So once again we go through the routine of sending out emails to chase payment, followed by apologies by the agency and excuses etc etc. Not a good way to conduct business IMHO but unfortunately this seems part of the culture we accept.

However, this isn’t as bad as another merchant whom I deal with directly. Every month I would send an invoice over to my contact in the account department. And I would politely ask that she acknowledge receipt of the invoice as the last thing I want is for an invoice to go missing in cyberspace and my payments to be delayed. And every month she would completely ignore my email and never reply, and when the invoice was due it was always approx. 2 to 3 weeks late. When I emailed her to ask why she just simply never responded. I used to have to email my Account Manager who would then walk round to her office to see what was going on. She was the most ignorant person I have ever met and in the end I asked not to have to deal with her anymore. I mean, how much effort does it to reply to an email saying “Yes Kieron, I can confirm that I received your invoice and payment will be made within the agreed 30 day period.” Instead my impression of her was that she was thinking in her head “Yes, I received your invoice but guess what? I’m not going to let you know that I received it. And even better I can’t be bothered to process it when you want so I’ll just do it when I want, which will be later than the due date mwahahaahaha! (evil laugh).”

It just really annoys me that companies seem to accept that paying an invoice late is standard practice and even worse, if the publisher doesn’t complain or chase up the invoice then they’ll delay payment even longer!

Anyway to chill out a bit I’m listening to the new CD by Tweet “It’s Me Again” and am just loving “Could It Be” and “Things I Don’t Mean” very nice.

P.S. I’ve had lots (well 2) people telling me that they have tried to post a comment but it’s just not working. There does seem to be a problem with blogger.com at the moment, so if you could all (well 2) keep trying then I would appreciate it. Thanks!