Royal Mail Business Account - How long to pay?

[cheekymeerkat]

I've been settling my monthly Royal Mail invoices by DD for 15 years. The invoice is dated 13th of the Month and they deduct payment 17 days later. Does anyone pay by BACS and if so how long do you get away with stretching those payment terms without suspending the account?

I have asked from the horses mouth and they said immediate suspension of the account - but they would say that wouldn't they!
They are pretty large invoices, usually 20k or so.
I'm in a slight cash flow pickle this month!

Thanks In Advance!

[skwdenyer]

cheekymeerkat said:

I've been settling my monthly Royal Mail invoices by DD for 15 years. The invoice is dated 13th of the Month and they deduct payment 17 days later. Does anyone pay by BACS and if so how long do you get away with stretching those payment terms without suspending the account?

I have asked from the horses mouth and they said immediate suspension of the account - but they would say that wouldn't they!
They are pretty large invoices, usually 20k or so.
I'm in a slight cash flow pickle this month!

Thanks In Advance!

The problem you have is that cancelling the DD might put up a red flag, causing you to come under special scrutiny, whereas if you'd been paying on invoice by BACS all this time then it would "just" be a late payment.

At £20k per month, the problem of course is they may interpret any sudden change as an indicator of real trouble... Ringing them up and asking them may have flagged this to them already...

Ignoring any other considerations, I'm pretty certain clients of mine at this scale have frequently gone 60-90 days until payment to RM, but I don't have an easy way of checking this evening. How much leaway do you need?

[uber]

20k a month is a big account and not one they would like to lose. It's also possible that the 15 years of large orders with them might make you an ideal target for a rival should who will incentify a changeover.

[anonymous-user]

What does it say on the invoice about terms?

Last time I checked, 30 days was standard: invoice every 7 days, payment collected by dd 30 days from date of invoice