[ortusdux]

GE has been a mess for a while now. I know many vendors that won't ink a deal with them because they always try and pay at the end of next quarter. Ironically, because everyone knows their tactics, they either end up paying more for reputable vendors that need an insurance buffer, or they end up with a worse product from fringe companies that are willing to roll the dice on getting paid.

[stcredzero]

I know many vendors that won't ink a deal with them because they always try and pay at the end of next quarter.

That soon? I've known companies with cash flow issues try to turn contractors' Net 30 or Net 90 into Net 180 and beyond.

[one2zero]

That's called NET Wednesday, Wednesday get around to paying you.

[Scoundreller]

Took me a minute, but Wednesday sounds like “once Dey” ie: “once they”

[koolba]

I read it as "Wenz dey", i.e. "When they get around...".

It's funnier if you say it out loud in a 1930s Dick Tracy bad guy voice.

[joebubna]

Bada boom!

Had me chuckling at that. Good one.

[patwolf]

We recently did work for a very large corporation that switched from net 60 to net 180. I'm not sure if they did it for cash flow reasons, but I doubt it. We're a small company, so it was tough for us considering we'd be paying developers 6-months of salary before we'd see a dime. They did conveniently offer financing so that we could get paid sooner, albeit with interest.

It seemed to me like large corporations feel that they can strong-arm their vendors into unsavory terms because of their clout.

[cjrp]

> They did conveniently offer financing so that we could get paid sooner, albeit with interest.

That's blown my mind a little, charging interest on a loan of money which you owe to someone. Genius.

[52-6F-62]

Sounds more like a low effort scam to me...

[pas]

What do you mean switched? It's usually spelled out in the contract, no? And they can't just change it unilaterally, right?

So if they want to renegotiate, fine, the rate goes up by the interest (and or risk premium).

[4ntonius8lock]

I think they also know that the cost of onboarding new providers for large corporations is high, so vendors tend to price enterprise higher than SB, since they know there is more reporting and more hoops to jump through.

Personally as a self employed consultant, I'd take the financing. Not so much for cash flow (though it is a consideration), but just my overall paranoia toward not getting paid and always valuing a bird in hand. But I've been burnt before.

[altmind]

this seems like bank factoring - getting a part of your future account receivable now. some banks do that, not sure if the rates are any good.

[rapht]

This actually has got a name in treasury circles: it's called "reverse factoring". One of the very nice side effects is that when you're a big publicly traded company, you can generally afford to set up a dedicated entity to handle this business, which gets to be considered a financial entity by IFRS reporting standards, which (through a complex reasoning I won't bother you with) magically enhance your operating cash flow - one of the more important reporting metrics when you're not actually not a bank but e.g a retailer.

[jcims]

Ran a very small security consultancy. The bigger the company the worse they were at paying at the agreed upon timeframe. (Looking at you Toyota)

[jeswin]

Same experience here in India. Larger companies (with $billions in revenue) pay in 1-3 months. Small/medium companies pay in a week.

The problem is that in big companies, nobody really owns anything. So you're going to have to chase a whole bunch of people and processes, from finance to compliance to HR. And it's not individually any single person's fault.

[the-dude]

You seem to suggest the paying-late is a symptom of the org, my experience is different : I happen to know certain big corporations have departments making sure bills are paid as late as possible, including haggling the invoices down.

[jjeaff]

Paying late is corporate finance 101. Or at least 201. I remember building spreadsheets in class showing the difference in paying bills on time vs net 30, 60, 90. The difference is pretty significant when dealing with large numbers.

[user5994461]

The difference used to be significant when inflation and interest rates where in the order of 10% year over year. It's not the case anymore since they dropped to near zero, unless you really don't have the cash on hands to pay now.

[6d6b73]

Funny thing about NET terms.. Now a lot of the large companies do billing only twice a month. So if you're unlucky your NET 30 will change to NET45 + 5 days for mailing, bank processing etc.. Somehow I always get unlucky and miss their billing day with my invoices.