Fourteen days, and the two times we missed it.
Payment terms are the single most consequential thing a large customer does to a small supplier, and they are almost never published. Ours are on this page, along with the record of when we did not meet them.
Why this page exists.
The standard payment term in food retail is thirty days, and the real payment term is between forty-five and ninety because the clock starts at a statement date rather than an invoice date and because there is a query process in the middle of it.
For a two-person bakery with a wage bill on Friday, that is not an administrative detail. It is the difference between growing and borrowing, and it is the mechanism by which large food businesses have been quietly financed by small ones for about forty years.
Fourteen days is not generous. It is what a same-week cash business ought to be able to manage, and publishing it is the only thing that makes it enforceable by anybody except us.
The terms, in full.
When we pay
- Standard term
- 14 days from invoice dateNot from statement date, and not from delivery
- New supplier, first three orders
- 7 daysBecause a new supplier has the least cushion
- Disputed invoice
- The undisputed part pays on timeWe do not hold a whole invoice over one line
- Payment method
- Bank transferNo supply chain finance, no early-payment discount schemes
When we are late
- Statutory interest
- Paid automaticallyBase rate plus 8%, without anybody asking
- Fixed compensation
- Paid automaticallyThe statutory £40, £70 or £100 by invoice size
- Times late in six years
- TwiceBoth in 2023, both our accounts system
- Told the supplier first?
- Once out of twiceThe second time they told us, which is the wrong way round
What we will not do
- Retrospective discounts
- NeverThe practice that has done more damage than any other
- Listing fees
- NeverFor shelf, for promotion, for anything
- Extended terms in exchange for volume
- NeverIt is a loan, dressed as a negotiation
- Consignment stock
- Only by supplier requestTwo producers prefer it; nobody is pushed into it
Nothing on this site takes payment. Trade ordering, applications and audits described here are demonstrations of how the process would run, not live systems, and no card or bank details are collected anywhere.
The record of late payments.
Two in six years. Published because a payment record that is only visible to the person waiting for the money is not a record, it is a grievance.
Record
-
09 Mar 2023
Late paymentInvoice 4471, 9 days late, £1,208
Accounts
a41c9f -
09 Mar 2023
Interest paidStatutory interest and £70 compensation, unprompted
Accounts
b7702d -
22 Aug 2023
Late paymentInvoice 5013, 16 days late, £3,940
Accounts
c1de84 -
24 Aug 2023
Supplier told usRather than us telling them, which is the wrong way round
Supplier
d90f13 -
31 Aug 2023
Interest paidStatutory interest and £100 compensation
Accounts
e2ab55 -
05 Sep 2023
Process changedPayment run moved to twice weekly from once
Accounts
f4c0a8
Invoice numbers and amounts are illustrative for this demonstration build. The pattern — two failures, both in one year, both fixed by paying twice weekly — is the part worth keeping.
What suppliers ask about money.
No. Fourteen days from invoice, and seven for your first three orders. A cash-on-delivery arrangement sounds better and creates a reconciliation problem that ends in somebody being paid twice or not at all.
No, and it is the single practice we would most like to see disappear from food retail. A price agreed is a price agreed.
Twenty-eight days notice in writing and we accept it or we stop ordering. We do not negotiate a producer down and we do not delist over a rise we think is fair.
No. There is nothing to buy. The good positions go to what sells, which is dull and correct.
How we pay, at a glance.
14 days
From invoice, not statement.
7 days at first
For your first three orders.
Interest, unprompted
When we are late, which is twice.
No retro discounts
Not once, not ever.
Everyone this applies to.
Nine producers with pages, thirteen on the marketplace.
The honest version, fortnightly
No campaign calendar, no filler. When there is nothing to say we do not send anything.
