NESTA

Standard Terms: The Charity operates a flexible, decentralised procurement model to ensure agility in our charitable work. We do not currently mandate a universal Purchase Order (PO) system or a single set of standard terms. Instead, we typically honour the specific terms requested by our suppliers on their individual invoices. For reporting purposes, we identify the most frequently occurring payment period within our supplier data as our standard term.

Payment Processing: We operate a centralised payment run every two weeks. Our policy is to include all approved and coded invoices in the run preceding their due date to ensure proactive settlement.

Flexibility and Exceptions: While we strive for 100% on-time payment, the following factors influence our reported statistics and contribute to the volume of payments technically flagged as 'late':

- Fortnightly Cycles: Invoices falling due between scheduled payment runs may occasionally be settled in the subsequent cycle.

- Impact of Short-Dated Terms: While we report our most frequently used terms as standard, a portion of our supplier base (such as legal and advisory services) issues invoices on a 'due on receipt' or 14-day basis. Because we do not override these with a longer mandatory contractual term, these accelerated requests often result in a technical 'late' flag if the settlement falls outside these short windows.

- Approval and Coding Requirements: Payment is only released once the relevant budget holder has formally approved the expenditure within our internal systems. This essential governance process is a primary driver for settlement times that may fall outside of non-standard, accelerated supplier terms.

- Accelerated Payments: We recognise the importance of cash flow for our partners and actively facilitate out-of-cycle payments upon request for critical services or to support smaller suppliers.

In the event of a query regarding an invoice, suppliers are encouraged to contact their primary contact in the first instance. This allows for a direct review of the services or goods provided. Where necessary, queries are escalated to our Finance department for further investigation and resolution.

Invoices subject to a query are held from the payment cycle until the details have been verified by the relevant budget holder. Upon resolution, we aim to settle the invoice as efficiently as possible and can facilitate out-of-cycle payments where necessary to ensure the supplier is not further delayed by the timing of our standard fortnightly runs.