a man who worked for Nestle in Brazil said that they would never send anything to Portugal until they got paid first (this was several years ago)
- well judging by this article not many things have changed

(from regia o sul news)


Algarve News > News

Portugal leads the ranking for bad payers

Public entities pay their invoices with an average delay of 87 days and are the main culprits when it comes to non fulfillment of contracts.

Companies in Portugal are causing the most trouble in Europe when it comes to paying invoices, with average payment delays reaching 87.5 days, according to a study carried out by Intrum Justitia.

Intrum Justitia, a credit management company, evaluates the credit risks in various European countries on a six monthly basis. According to the company’s data, the biggest delays relate to public entities (87 days), followed by companies (34.2 days) and private individuals (22.6 days).

In the risk index of Autumn 2004, the average payment time was 85.3 days, 2.2 days less that than the current situation.

In addition, the unrecoverable amount has suffered an increase, rising from 2.9% in autumn 2004 to 3% in 2005.

Portuguese companies have the highest unrecoverable amounts in Southern Europe, while the lowest amounts can be found in Finland, Sweden and Italy.

The increase in the average payment time and the worsening of the irrecoverable amounts has meant an increase in the risk index to 188 points, against the 186 points recorded in autumn 2004 and the 184 registered in the previous six months.

According to the report made by Intrum Justitia, this amount shows that it is “imperative to make changes”.

As we can see, due to this, Portugal is the country with highest risk index, leading the table of 17 countries that were analysed. Finland is bottom of the table with 126 points.

Ireland has 139 points, France 148 points, Latvia, Switzerland and the UK all have 150 points.

Those above 160 points are Lithuania and Spain (both with 161 points) and the Czech Republic (171 points).

According to the study carried out by Intrum Justitia, the existing credit management strategy of Portuguese companies is still based on the assumption that suppliers rarely take legal action to force debtors to pay their outstanding invoices.

According to the same report, the costs incurred by the late payments or non fulfillment of contracts are usually supported by the buying agents or by the suppliers themselves, depending on if the costs would or wouldn’t be incorporated into the prices.

In relation to paying for services etc, a friend of mine (despite me telling him NOT to do it) paid his local builder most of the money up front. They had only been working on his project for a week or so. Guess what? He hasn't seen them since. I told him the builder is probably now busy looking for a new car rather than roof tiles. Why do people do that?

However, I have to say that I meet other Portuguese craftspeople etc that don't bother chasing you for the money at all. Another friend of mine had loads of aliminium shutters and glass patio doors made and fitted and the guy didn't bother to ask for payment. In the end, my friend had to run around after him trying to pay him.

Happened to me:
After having had the water system repaired in my garden, I had lots of trouble paying for it. I had to put an advert in the local bar looking for the guy and had some people chasing him out untill I finally met him and payd.

It is very common for UK companies to not pay invoices for at least 3 months. Especially when a big company owes a little company money.

had the same "trouble" with our management company over shutters! 60 days nett in the U.K. is about the norm. CVO tradespeople, in my opinion, tend to use the jobs they have done as a sort of bank, want paying when they need it and not before