Support for business

We are working towards a more efficient 'Purchase to Pay' process. The majority of orders for goods and services will now need to be placed using an official purchase order from the council’s electronic procurement system, (iProc). There are exceptions to this rule and these are contained in our Certified payments policy, however in general all goods supplied and services provided will require a purchase order to be placed. Orders for works are however specifically exempt from this process.

The purchase order placed will provide details of the requirement, the delivery and invoice addresses, and will specifically contain a 7 digit number containing no letters or symbols which must be quoted on any invoice submitted for payment. Where an invoice is submitted without a valid purchase order number quoted, other than the categories recognised as an exception, these will not be processed or paid.

Payment

Unless specific contract terms have been agreed, the our standard payment terms are 30 days from receipt of a valid invoice, and an invoice will only be deemed valid if a purchase order number is quoted upon it. If an invoice is submitted without a purchase order number it will remain unprocessed unless this number is provided. This will result in an indefinite delay in payment.
It is therefore in your best interests to ensure that you get a purchase order prior to the provision of goods or delivery of service, and that you quote this number on your invoice. If a purchase order is not received, you should contact the person who gave the instruction for the goods/service to request it.

More information, including the different processes and procedures, are on the EU Procurement Directives pages of the European Commission website.

You may want to read our Procurement Strategy and annual procurement report.