Offered credit to Govt bodies

hairyslug

Up until now I have refused to offer credit, I have been mainly dealing with private customers. I have been approached by 2 HSE and 1 Dept of Ed recently about purchasing but they will only deal with me if I offer them 30 days credit. I'm just looking to see if anyone has had any negative experiences with dealing with them with regards to credit.

whippet

shouldn't be any problem once you make sure you get official purchase orders.

What causes delays in getting paid is things like invoices not matching purchase order numbers, incorrect VAT rates, not getting POs etc .. so once you have your paperwork in order you should get paid on time.

scwazrh

PO numbers are the big thing and also expect the thirty days to run anything up to 45 days depending on bank holidays or when the last day of the month falls in relation to their pay run dates.
Can’t stress enough the importance of a P.O. number though , your inv means little if it is not exactly the same as the PO amount.

BnB

Agree with the above two

No problem with the HSE with regard to Credit - But you can have problems getting paid from them, depending on what hospital/dept you ware working with.

But, it is just a matter of finding out what the correct process is, and then sticking to that rigidly.

Stuff like -
- Do you need a PO (you probably do)
- When you are invoicing, who do you send it to - (Finance, or the person who bought from you - Or some central accounts unit)
- You obviously reference the PO on the Invoice, but do you need to Reference anything else - The purchaser... anything else

Also, it is worth noting that it may work out to be more that 30 days - Most HSE's that we deal with have something like a Monthly payment run. So when you invoice in a month, you will be paid at the end of the following month. Regardless of whether you invoice on the 1st of the month or the 30th of the month. But again, that changes from one hospital/area to the next.

However, when you know the process and you stick to it, the money will come in like clockwork. Also, in terms of business growth, if you are in one HSE site/dept and they are happy with your product/service, then you have a great chance of getting into a lot more of them and expanding fairly rapidly.

Make sure your Tax Clearance is up to date. Get a PO, get the name of who issued the PO, have proof of delivery.

They are ideal payees; if they are late (almosts never) they always pay the late fee.

AndrewJRenko

Public bodies are required by law to pay invoices promptly;

Here's an example of the policy of one public body.

https://www.enterprise-ireland.com/en/About-Us/Services/Prompt-Payment-Policy/

CeilingFly

also make sure you include you bank details - Iban and BIC (BIC is no longer required, but handy to enclose just in case)

uck51js9zml2yt

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Public bodies are required by law to pay invoices promptly;

Here's an example of the policy of one public body.

https://www.enterprise-ireland.com/en/About-Us/Services/Prompt-Payment-Policy/

As above
. I was responsible for payments in my govt department. They normally do a payment run once a week. Find out when it is to make sure your invoice is in before the run.The easier you make it for it to be processed the better.

Make sure you have a po number.
A po needs to be approved by a manager so there is no risk of it being unapproved.

I normally never took note of the credit terms. When it came in, it was paid.

Buttercake

Also consider Withholding Tax for Professional Services, stung many times on that one.