VODAFONE LIMITED

The percentages provided in the payment statistics above include payments made to Vodafone Group entities providing goods or services to Vodafone Limited. Vodafone intercompany payment terms include many transactions with payment terms up to 115 days. These payments are included in our reported statistics as required and this therefore impacts the payment statistics. If intercompany payments are excluded from the statistics, they are as follows:

Average time to pay in days – 44 days
Split of payments made under qualifying contracts in the reporting period:

A) Percentage of invoices paid between day 1 and day 30 (inclusive) – 41 %
B) Percentage of invoices paid between day 31 and day 60 (inclusive) – 55 %
C) Percentage of invoices paid on or after day 61 – 4%
The total value of these is:
• Within 30 days: £1,042,471,099 (64%)
• in 31 to 60 days: £441,013,330 (27%)
• in 61 days or more: £156,631,450 (9%)

Payments due in the reporting period which have not been paid within the agreed period – 2 %
Total value of payments due in the reporting period which have not been paid within the agreed period = £76,226,075

Our standard payment terms are as follows:

General procurement agreements:
For external suppliers Vodafone Limited’s standard payment terms are 60 days from the date of receipt of invoice, or where a supplier is classed as a small supplier, in accordance with the UK Companies Act, 30 days from the date of receipt of invoice. Where the relevant agreement relates to the provisions of goods or services for supply to public sector customers, Vodafone Limited’s standard payment terms are 30 days from date of receipt of invoice. For procurement from other Vodafone Group companies Vodafone Limited’s payment terms are up to 115 days.
Longer or shorter payment terms may be agreed as part of a wider commercial negotiation of the relevant agreement. Any deviation from standard terms will take into account, amongst other things, (i) the type of goods or services provided and undertaken, (ii) the size of the supplier and its wider corporate group, (iii) the supplier’s relationship with the wider Vodafone Group and (iv) any other relevant commercial factors.

Carrier services agreements:
Vodafone Limited operates netting arrangements with certain other telecommunications providers in relation to reciprocal roaming and inter-connect agreements.  These arrangements are standard in the telecommunications industry.  Invoices that are set-off in full against reciprocal invoices from Vodafone Limited to other parties are not included in the payment statistics as no payment is made.  Outside of these netting arrangements Vodafone Limited’s standard payment terms for these types of agreements are as set out above for general procurement.

For sponsorship and utilities agreements there are no standard payment terms as all contracts are agreed on a case by case basis.

For Retail Franchise and Consumer (CBU) Indirect channel partners, commission is calculated monthly and is paid one month in arrears at the end of the following month.

For Enterprise (EBU) Indirect Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) Partners (also known as Vodafone Partner Services) commission is calculated monthly and is paid on the first Tuesday or Friday (whichever comes first) in the second month following.

For Aggregator Partners, revenue payments for ‘charge to bill’ services are calculated at the end of the month following the month in which the service user's transaction occurred and are paid in arrear at the end of the calculation month. Further revenue payments to Aggregator Partners, for 'charge to bill' transactions where the service user has paid Vodafone late, are paid at the end of the 6th month following the transaction.

Vodafone Limited were signatories to the Prompt Payment Code until Dec 24 when it was withdrawn but remain committed to adhering to fair payment principles and have submitted an expression of interest to join its replacement, the Fair Payment Code.

The majority of our invoices are received via eInvoicing which also improves our ability to pay them on time.

Vodafone Limited continue to ensure that suppliers identified as small in accordance with the Companies Act, are changed to payment terms of 30 days from receipt of invoice where previous longer terms applied.

Any disputes on individual invoices should be raised to the Vodafone Limited Accounts Payable team via our Supplier Digital Portal (http://supplier.ariba.com/) who will work with the supplier to resolve the issue. The supplier will generally receive a response the next day but we aim to respond to all queries within 5 working days.

Any contractual disputes are managed through our Commercial Contract Management Process involving the supplier, Supply Chain Management and Legal. Suppliers should contact Supply Chain Management or the applicable Vodafone Commercial Manager in such cases.

Vodafone Limited does not currently have a process which records the percentage of payments not made within the payment period as a result of a dispute. As we are unable to accurately report our position, we have entered 0% whilst we work towards correcting this for future submissions.