Getting Paid

You've done the hard part. You've knocked on doors, left samples, followed up, and finally got an order. You've brewed the beer, delivered it, and the pub is pouring it. Now you just need to get paid.

Good luck with that.

Payment terms in the pub trade are notoriously loose. Thirty days is standard on paper, but in practice it can stretch to sixty, ninety, or longer. Some pubs pay promptly. Many don't. Some will "forget" and need chasing. Some will dispute the invoice over something trivial. Some are genuinely struggling and are robbing Peter to pay Paul — your invoice goes to the bottom of the pile because the electricity bill and the rates are more urgent.

Chasing payments is a miserable, time-consuming task that makes you feel simultaneously like a debt collector and a nuisance. You're phoning or emailing someone who owes you money, knowing that if you push too hard you'll lose the account, but if you don't push at all you'll never get paid. It's a tightrope that nobody enjoys walking.

And there's the ultimate risk: the pub closes and takes your money with it. Pubs are going bust at an alarming rate, and when one folds, its unsecured creditors — that's you — are at the back of the queue. You'll get a letter from an insolvency practitioner, fill in a form, and receive nothing. The beer is drunk, the money is gone, and you're writing it off as a bad debt.

Cash flow is the lifeblood of any small business, and selling to pubs on credit terms means you're permanently lending money to your customers. You've paid for the ingredients, the energy, the labour, and the packaging upfront. The money from the sale trickles back weeks or months later, if it comes back at all. Meanwhile, your malt supplier wants paying in fourteen days and your hop merchant wants their money now.