It’s certainly immoral and unethical, shame it’s not illegal

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When I read Editor in Chief of Accountancy Age Damian Wild’s post on Alliance Boots’ payment terms I had to check the date to make sure it still wasn’t April Fool’s day. In fact Damian had posted a day earlier and it wasn’t a joke.

It’s bad enough that Boots bosses’ payment terms to small suppliers are a staggering 75 days. But it gets worse, the European Leaders in Procurement blog says that Boots will pay its suppliers up to 105 days after billing. And it gets even worse as “it will then charge a 2.5% “settlement fee”.’

You read that right. Boots CHARGES its small suppliers for paying its bills LATE.

It’s immoral, unethical and should be criminal.

As a small business owner I can know that the biggest problem we face is the length of time it takes clients to pay their bills. I probably don’t need to tell you how much more love and attention a client that pays on time gets.

Thanks to Dennis Howlett for the Twitter tip.