I am a subcontractor who has a particular vendor who supplies us our materials. I am in constant battle with them about sending out invoices on time. I contact them weekly and always end up in silence. Until all of a sudden I will get a flood of invoices in that are already due or about to be due. How can I protect myself in regards to this? Because they are filing liens this month for invoices that we never received in time for us to be able to collect for.
The method to protect yourself from practices like this is having a contract in place that states clearly the terms under which your company must be invoiced, and that if the terms are not met, the company will no owe the invoices. Language similar to this is extremely common on large scale projects, but much less so on smaller scale projects. The good news is that if you hire an attorney to assist you with this, while there's some up front cost in drafting a contract for you, your savings in out of pocket payment and litigation costs down the road will more than make up for it.
Absent language like this, your materialmen are not held to the requirements of your contract with the contractor superior to you, and you always want them to be.
There's a lot to discuss here. If you want to look into getting an agreement together for future use, feel free to contact me directly.
Ben House
ben@houseperron.com
281-762-1377