Business Loyalty...

...or is everyone just out to make a few extra bob these days? We have many suppliers in our farm business, some whose invoices make my eyes water every time I open the envelope. They all have to be paid and most of them leave a date on the invoice or statement to specify the pay-by deadline. Most give you 28 days to pay, some limit it to 14. We generally don't have a problem with these deadlines because after all, we are running a business just like they are; ours might be on a smaller scale but it's still about making money nonetheless. One of our bigger suppliers that we can't trade without, has been particularly generous over the years and extremely loyal but recently they've tightened their belts (understandable in this financial climate) and we are no longer given a day's grace for late payment. I'm not talking a few pounds here, I'm talking thousands of pounds, on a regular basis, so unless we pay up we get stung with interest. Therefore, we pay up. All done above board and without any quarms. They're a massive organisation and this slight change in their relaxed attitude to farming accounts was really inevitable, considering we got away with it for so long! Now they get paid at the end of the month and our bank balance dwindles. We only hope the yield from our crops doesn't suffer because of the weather and we are able to re-balance the books at year end.

Then we have other companies that have supplied us for years, changed names, changed hands, changed locations, changed reps, and we've been loyal to them; in fact, one in particular we have turned to in order to buy a massive amount of supplies after a firm we used to buy from went downhill. Long story. Won't bore myself with it, never mind you. On their statements they specify how much we owe, yet their final total never tallies up with the amount payable. Why? Because they add interest onto that amount and make it look like we owe more than we actually do. It's only a matter of pounds in some cases, but it's really starting to irritate me. It's what they class as a 'credit charge'. (Did you know that BT charge you extra to pay by cheque? I found that out recently, too.) Because we've been so loyal to this company I refuse to pay the credit charge and always pay on time anyway. But it's a damn cheek in my opinion to add this charge to your invoice, as though they are assuming you'll pay late anyway. The remittance advice always states the invoice amount plus the credit charge as the total payable, which obviously won't tally up with your true amount outstanding. Maybe some people haven't got time to check their invoices and just pay the amount it states, which will obviously have an impact on your VAT if you are registered. Out to make a few extra bob? Aren't we all...