Bureaucracy, Part 748923: The difficulty of paying bills on time

As an entrepreneur, you know that when business isn’t going so well, outstanding payments can sometimes pile up. Most business partners pay after a friendly reminder, but sometimes you encounter absurd situations. I would like to tell you about one such situation today. In my opinion, it belongs in the category of bureaucracy that the world doesn’t need – but read for yourself:

A customer received an invoice from us at the end of the month with a 14-day payment term. After the 14 days had passed and no payment had been received, we sent a polite reminder. The invoice was “scheduled for payment with the next payment run.” I didn’t think anything of it – except that this next payment run couldn’t be too far in the future. After all, this is a medium-sized company, so there are quite a few payment transactions.

Another two weeks passed without the invoice being paid. Our back office inquired again and was told that, unfortunately, the transfer had not yet been made due to illness-related absence. The payment would therefore be postponed to the next payment run. Our colleague then asked when the next payment run would be. Well, according to the customer’s representative, invoices are always paid on the first Thursday of each calendar month! And unfortunately, it is not possible to make an “unscheduled” payment between two payment cycles because it is “technically impossible.”

At this point, I had to laugh out loud when my colleague told me this. I find two things astonishing about this – namely, that in 2024

• there are actually companies that settle accounts payable invoices ONCE a month – and that
• it is not possible to trigger a payment outside of a defined standard process – because “IT” allegedly cannot map it any other way.

With all due respect, I consider this to be a typical case of procedural obstinacy: “We only pay on the first Thursday of every month, and that’s final!” Or a way for the company to secure liquidity at the expense of its suppliers. Or both.

Fun fact: a conversation between the managing directors made the supposedly impossible possible, and an “exception to the rule” was made. After “only” 48 days, the invoice was finally paid.

I wonder why companies feel the need to behave like this. Whether it was ultimately more legal wrangling (intentional or not, that remains to be seen), ignorance, or simply convenience, it doesn’t matter in terms of the outcome. As always, no one pays for the effort and all the time spent chasing after it.