Advocate Commercial Debt Recovery has successfully recovered £20,000.00 from one of Britain’s biggest supermarkets. During a visit, the average shopper has little reason to note anything other than prices and special offers. Behind the scenes, you will find a labyrinth of supply chain logistics. Our client was contracted to install a conveyor belt at a distribution centre capable of operating in sub-zero temperatures to ensure frozen produce cannot spoil during loading. For the supermarket, £20k was well spent on reducing spoils.
Invoice Portal Error
A newly launched procurement system meant our client was now required to upload invoices to a portal. To validate the computer had read the invoices correctly, the invoice details had to be input manually using a CSV (Excel-based) file. Two months later, our client was informed the CSV did not match, and the invoices had been read at £0. Despite repeated pleas for help, our client was never offered advice or guidance. With the debt approaching 200 days overdue and Accounts Payable denying any responsibility, Advocate were instructed to collect payment of the debt.
Debt Collected on Day Six
Advocate quickly got the attention of the supermarket’s Procurement Manager, who was eager to point out that the client had not followed the new escalation procedure. Correspondence logs presented to the manager showed Accounts Payable failed to communicate escalation options. Admittedly, our client had not realised there was a different procedure to follow. In Advocate’s view, Accounts Payable had ignored our client and denied them the olive branch normally afforded to suppliers when transitioning to a new system.
Written and verbal discussions continued in a bid to resolve the £0 invoicing issue and obtain payment. The root cause of non-payment turned out to be the computer looking in the wrong places when reading our client’s invoices. By day four of our debt collection action, the invoices had been matched on the system, and by day six, our client had received full payment. The £2k of statutory late payment charges were also promptly received.