Andy: Negotiating longer payment terms is a whole different issue. We have clients on all kinds of terms – if someone declares they can only pay on certain terms then it is up to us as a business to decide if we want to do business with them. However, what is an issue is the general ignoring of supplier terms – even after signing contracts accepting them.

Sean: not everyone does design work that they can hold back from the client until payment is made. We’re a development shop and a lot of the time are offering consultancy, training, or installing something onto an existing server so once the work is done, it is done and in situ (or the consultancy has happened etc.) If you can get away with never delivering until you have payment then you are very fortunate and shouldn’t have this problem.

Also, this conversation has moved onto the tactics of large businesses. What concerns me more is the way that small businesses seem to follow suit. I’d like to encourage small businesses to support each other, be upfront if they are going to pay late due to a cashflow issue, and not act as if paying late was some kind of marker of having great business sense.