Late Payments in the Big Apple — And Beyond

New York, New York.  If you can make it there, you must be getting paid on time — easier said than done. Late payments reign, but legislation seeks to make governments pay vendors more quickly.

We’ve seen late payments legislation make its way through any number of countries, looking to get payment terms codified and reduce the time it takes to get smaller firms compensated for the goods and services they provide.

Legislation that may make its way through New York City’s council would help change the contracting process, with an eye on improving timeliness of government payment to vendors.

The legislation, known as Intro 1067, would mandate that the Procurement Policy Board would create a process that would spur city agencies to keep those vendors informed about late payments and the reasons behind them.

Similarly, the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services would have to get reports on those same late payments.  From that mayoral office, reports would be given every six months to both the mayor and the city council.

According to the New York Post, amid instances of agencies paying late, the Department of Homeless Services has been late with 78 percent of contract registrations and payments to vendors since 2013. In another instance, only five percent of those contracts were registered in a timely manner last year.

Separately, in Montreal, a construction industry trade group has said that there have been fewer bids for city projects in the wake of late payments from the city. The city itself, according to the Montreal Gazette, is not taking steps similar to those seen in the province at large, where a payments schedule would be introduced.

The provincial government announced the payments schedule pilot program last month and it goes into effect in October.

In Australia, payment terms are improving. Consider the fact that the average overdue invoice, as estimated by data analytics company illion has found that the average time outstanding is down to 11 days — down 25 percent year-over-year and down by about half from 2011, when the firm started tracking that data.

Find out what’s been happening in those far flung locales here.