Supplier Payment Terms and the Cash Plan

A payment term is not an industry habit — the statute draws an outer edge

Most restaurant owners learn supplier terms the way they learn portion sizes: from whoever was there first. The meat supplier says fourteen days, the drinks distributor twenty-one, the linen company invoices monthly, and nobody in the kitchen asks where those numbers come from. They come from a negotiation inside a statutory frame — the Polish act on counteracting excessive delays in commercial transactions, consolidated text published as Dz.U. 2023 poz. 1790. It governs deliveries of goods and services between entrepreneurs and between entrepreneurs and public bodies: the legal shape of every invoice your kitchen receives and every invoice your catering arm issues. It is not consumer law and does not touch the guest's bill.

Two things in that act change how a venue plans money: a ceiling on the term the parties may put in the contract, and a fixed amount that becomes due the moment payment is late, with no letter and no reminder required. Everything else here is arithmetic built on those two facts.

Contractual payment term — the term set in the contract, which may not exceed 60 days counted from the day the debtor was served the invoice or bill confirming delivery of the goods or performance of the service, unless the parties expressly agree otherwise in the manner the provision itself names.

What starts the clock, and why the invoice date is not it

The count starts neither when the goods arrive nor on the date printed on the invoice. It starts on the day the invoice or bill was served on the debtor — the document confirming the delivery or the service. In a venue that receives paper invoices with the crates and files them on Monday, those are three different dates, and the gap between them is the first thing a cash plan loses.

That is a housekeeping problem before a legal one. If the date of service is recorded nowhere, nobody can say when the term ends, when the delay begins or what it costs. Structured invoicing removes the ambiguity by construction — see invoicing automation and the KSeF requirements.

Sixty days from the service of the invoice: where the number actually sits

The ceiling is art. 7 ust. 2: the payment term set in the contract may not exceed 60 days, counted from the day the invoice or bill confirming the delivery of the goods or the performance of the service was served on the debtor (Dz.U. 2023 poz. 1790, art. 7 ust. 2 — ISAP, read 28 August 2026).

The same provision carries an escape: the parties may expressly agree otherwise, on condition that the arrangement is not grossly unfair to the creditor. So 60 days is not an absolute wall — it is the default outer edge, and going past it requires an express agreement that survives a fairness test.

One configuration closes that escape. Under art. 7 ust. 2a, when the debtor obliged to pay is a large entrepreneur and the creditor is a micro, small or medium entrepreneur, the term may not exceed 60 days, full stop (Dz.U. 2023 poz. 1790, art. 7 ust. 2a — ISAP, read 28 August 2026). For most independent venues this points outward: when you sell — catering for a corporate client, a standing order for an office canteen — this provision protects your own invoice. Because the rule turns on who is large, the act makes the status declarable: art. 4c ust. 1 obliges an entrepreneur to give the other side a statement that it holds, has acquired or has lost large-entrepreneur status. That statement belongs in the supplier file next to the contract.

Two consequences follow for a term written past the ceiling. If it was set contrary to ust. 2 or ust. 2a, art. 7 ust. 3 gives the creditor who performed its side the right to interest after 60 days have run from service of the invoice. And if the term exceeds 120 days and was set in breach of ust. 2, art. 7 ust. 3a lets the creditor withdraw from the contract or terminate it.

Knowing that boundary is what stops a supplier's "we always work on ninety days" from sounding like a fact.

Thirty days, and the case where the creditor is not a large entrepreneur

The sixty-day figure is the headline, not the only period in the act, and a restaurant meets the shorter one from both sides.

Art. 5 covers the case where the parties to a commercial transaction — excluding a public body that is a medical entity — set a payment term longer than 30 days. There a creditor who is not a large entrepreneur may claim statutory interest after 30 days have run from the day it performed and served the invoice or bill, up to the day of payment but no longer than the day the payment falls due (Dz.U. 2023 poz. 1790, art. 5 — ISAP, read 28 August 2026). A long term agreed with a smaller counterparty is not free for the buyer: the waiting is priced from day thirty-one.

Art. 6 ust. 1 handles the case nobody plans for — a transaction with no payment term at all. The creditor then gets statutory interest for delay in commercial transactions, without any reminder, once 30 days have run from the day it performed. A restaurant that buys on a handshake and pays "when the month closes" sits inside this provision, not outside the law.

When the debtor is a public body, art. 8 ust. 2 sets the term at no more than 30 days from service of the invoice, and 60 days where the public body is a medical entity. This matters when the venue is the seller: school catering, a hospital canteen, a municipal event. The money there moves on a period the act names, and the contract should name the same one.

Recovery compensation: forty, seventy and one hundred euro, and what sets the step

The second fact that changes planning is a fixed amount in three steps. From the day the creditor acquires the right to interest, art. 10 ust. 1 gives it, without any reminder, a recovery cost compensation of 40 euro where the value of the monetary consideration does not exceed 5 000 zloty (pkt 1); 70 euro where that value is higher than 5 000 zloty but lower than 50 000 zloty (pkt 2); and 100 euro where it is equal to or higher than 50 000 zloty (pkt 3) (Dz.U. 2023 poz. 1790, art. 10 ust. 1 pkt 1-3 — ISAP, read 28 August 2026).

Recovery cost compensation — the amount owed to the creditor, without any reminder, for the costs of recovering the debt: 40 euro where the obligation does not exceed 5 000 zl, 70 euro above 5 000 zl and below 50 000 zl, and 100 euro from 50 000 zl upward.

The steps are set in euro, and art. 10 ust. 1a says how to bring them into zloty: at the average euro rate announced by the National Bank of Poland on the last working day of the month preceding the month in which the monetary consideration fell due. Three provisions belong next to the table. Art. 10 ust. 2 gives the creditor, on top of the fixed amount, reimbursement of justified recovery costs exceeding it. Art. 10 ust. 4 says the claim for that compensation may not be assigned — it cannot be sold to a collection buyer with the debt. And art. 11 ust. 2 provides that where money is paid in instalments, interest and compensation apply to each unpaid part.

Why this page does not print a zloty figure

Three amounts are in the act; none is a zloty amount. The conversion rate is fixed per month by the central bank, so a zloty figure written into a page in August is a different figure in September and still looks authoritative long after it stopped being true. A number without a date rots quietly, and a reader who copies it into a contract inherits the rot. The rule is the one the act implies: name the euro step, name the conversion mechanism, take the rate on the day you calculate. The same holds for the interest rate for delay — the act defines it rather than stating a figure (art. 4 pkt 3), so the figure lives outside the act and changes on its own.

Compensation without a reminder: why that changes the price of a short delay

The words that do the work in art. 10 ust. 1 are "bez wezwania" — without a reminder. The compensation attaches from the day the right to interest arises and does not care whether anyone complained. That breaks the intuition most owners carry: that a delay of three days costs a thousandth of a delay of a thousand days, because interest is proportional to time. It is not, because the fixed part is proportional to nothing. On a small invoice paid three days late, the fixed step can exceed the interest by an order of magnitude; on a large one paid a year late, it is a rounding error. The price of delay is steepest where owners think it is cheapest.

Cost of delay = Compensation step + Interest for the days of delay

• Compensation step — the fixed amount of art. 10 ust. 1 for the value of that obligation, converted from euro at the rate of art. 10 ust. 1a, zl;
• Interest for the days of delay — the principal multiplied by the statutory interest rate for delay in commercial transactions in force on the date of the calculation and by the delay as a fraction of a year, zl;
• both terms are money, so the sum is money.

The arithmetic that does not depend on either rate is worth doing once. On an invoice of 18 000 zl paid 12 days late, the time-weighted principal is 18 000 x 12 / 365 = 591.78 zl-years, so the interest component is 591.78 multiplied by whatever the rate is on your date. The fixed component is the 70 euro step, because 18 000 zl sits above 5 000 and below 50 000, converted at the rate of the relevant month. Change the delay to 3 days and the interest component falls to 147.95 multiplied by the rate — while the fixed component does not move. That is the argument for treating supplier payments as a scheduled operation rather than a monthly scramble. Not the interest. The step.

From terms to a plan: thirteen weeks as the horizon you can still act on

A payment term is a date; a cash plan is a list of dates with money attached. The bridge between them is a horizon short enough to be accurate and long enough to be useful, and for a venue that horizon is thirteen weeks.

Thirteen-week cash plan — our own instrument, not a legal norm: a weekly grid of expected receipts and payments covering the quarter ahead. Thirteen weeks is the horizon on which the venue can still change the outcome.

Why not twelve months: a twelve-month cash view is a forecast of the market, wrong by the third month for reasons nobody in the venue controls. Why not four weeks: by the time a gap appears in a four-week view, every lever that could close it — moving a delivery, renegotiating a term, delaying a non-critical order — has expired. Thirteen weeks is the span in which a supplier term of 30 or 60 days is visible from the day you agree it, which is why the statutory ceiling belongs next to the plan.

The plan sits on top of the profitability arithmetic rather than replacing it. The break-even point tells you what volume covers your costs; the cash plan tells you whether the money arrives before the bills do. The first is worked out in the restaurant break-even point; this page assumes it.

How the weekly grid of receipts and payments is built

The grid is a form, not a benchmark. One row per week, four working columns, filled with the venue's own numbers — no industry template can supply them, and any page offering one is selling a guess.

Closing balance of the week = Closing balance of the previous week + Receipts of the week - Payments of the week

• Closing balance of the previous week — the money on hand at the start, zl;
• Receipts of the week — everything expected to land in that week, zl;
• Payments of the week — everything expected to leave in that week, zl;
• all three are money in the same week, so the result is money.

Checked by hand, on figures chosen only to verify the operation and not offered as a norm: 12 400 + 86 000 - 91 200 = 7 200 zl. Carry that forward, subtract a heavier week, and the row goes negative — the purpose of the column.

Receipts come from a forecast, not from hope

The most common way a thirteen-week plan fails is a receipts column filled with optimism. Covers times average check is a forecast, and a forecast has a method: seasonality, day of week, weather, local events, the shape of the last four comparable weeks. That method is worked through in restaurant demand forecasting, and the plan inherits its accuracy from there. A venue already running a forecasting layer feeds the same series into the grid instead of re-typing it — that is what our forecast service exists for, and what the finance layer does with the result once both columns sit in one place.

The cash gap: where it is born in a seasonal venue

A cash gap is not a loss. A venue can be profitable across a quarter and still be unable to pay in week seven: profitability is measured over a period, payment happens on a date.

In a seasonal venue the gap has a predictable birthplace. Receipts fall first — a quiet February, a rained-out terrace week, a corporate client that moved its Christmas party to January. Payments do not fall with them: the invoices arriving now are for goods delivered when trade was good, and their terms were counted from that delivery. The plan shows this as a shoulder — three normal weeks, then one where receipts drop and payments do not.

Energy is the classic off-beat payment. It arrives on a billing cycle unrelated to your trading week, and its size follows the weather rather than the covers, so it deserves its own line in the grid instead of being averaged into overheads — we take that cost apart in the energy cost per cover. The other reliable surprise is the till side: what closed, what was recorded, and when the recorded figure becomes money in the account, handled in the fiscal cash register and the daily close.

What matters in the grid is not the depth of the negative number but its date. A gap in week three and a gap in week eleven are different problems: the first has almost no levers left, the second has all of them.

Contractual term against actual: the gap you only see in a measurement

Every venue believes it pays on time; very few have measured it, and the two are not the same statement.

Actual payment term — the average number of days from service of the invoice to payment, measured on the facts. It differs from the contractual term, and the gap is visible only in a measurement.

Actual payment term = SUM (Days from service of the invoice to payment x Invoice amount) / SUM Invoice amounts

• Days from service of the invoice to payment — counted per invoice, days;
• Invoice amount — the value of that invoice, zl;
• the numerator is days multiplied by money, the denominator is money, so the result is days.

Why it is weighted by amount and not counted per invoice

A simple average over invoices flatters you. Ten small invoices paid on day two and one large invoice paid on day ninety average out to about ten days — a number that would satisfy any supplier and describe nothing. Weight the same eleven by value and the large one dominates, which is correct: it is what the supplier's own cash plan is waiting for.

Worked by hand, on arithmetic rather than a norm: two invoices, 4 000 zl paid on day 10 and 40 000 zl paid on day 55. Weighted: (10 x 4 000 + 55 x 40 000) / 44 000 = (40 000 + 2 200 000) / 44 000 = 50.9 days. Simple average: 32.5 days. Eighteen days of difference is the whole disagreement between how you see yourself and how the supplier sees you.

Put the measured number next to the contractual one and one of three things is true. They match, and the plan describes reality. The actual is shorter, and you are financing your supplier for free — a lever you did not know you had. The actual is longer, and you are already inside art. 7 ust. 3, art. 5 or art. 6 ust. 1, with a fixed compensation step on each late invoice.

Running that comparison across every supplier is a query, not an afternoon — the standing measurement our reporting layer produces, and the shape of the numbers an owner reads is in reporting automation and the numbers an owner actually looks at.

How to change a term with a supplier without losing the price

Price and term are one negotiation, not two. A supplier who agrees to move you from 14 days to 45 will price that agreement, and a buyer who treats the term as free pays for it in the unit price and never sees the trade.

The act gives both sides structure. Art. 11 ust. 1 allows the parties to agree a schedule of payment in instalments, provided the arrangement is not grossly unfair to the creditor — a middle path between a short term the venue cannot meet and a long term the supplier will not grant. Art. 11a ust. 1 says that whether contractual provisions are grossly unfair to the creditor is assessed on all the circumstances of the case, which is why no clause is safe merely because both parties signed it.

Three practical positions follow, none of which requires legal advice to hold:

• Ask for the term in writing and the status statement with it. Art. 4c ust. 1 already obliges the counterparty to declare large-entrepreneur status; term and status in one file is the difference between knowing which provision governs you and guessing.
• Trade the term against something you can measure. Volume commitment, delivery frequency, a narrower order window — all visible in the purchase data, so you can verify afterwards whether the trade held.
• Price the term before you accept it. A longer term is worth what the money is worth to you over those days; a shorter one is worth what it removes from the worst week in the grid. Playing both versions through the plan before the conversation is what our what-if layer is for, and the arithmetic behind a single order line is worked out on the sister page about purchase price variance and the three documents.

The negotiation also has a floor unrelated to law: a supplier squeezed into a term it cannot carry manages its own cash by cutting your delivery priority. The cheapest term in the contract is not the cheapest term in the kitchen.

What to look at every Friday so you do not learn about the gap on Monday

A thirteen-week plan is worth as much as the discipline of updating it. The update is short — twenty minutes if the data sits in one place — and has a fixed shape: the closing balance of the current week against what the plan predicted last Friday; the first negative week, and whether it moved closer or further away; the invoices whose term ends in the next two weeks, sorted by amount rather than by date; and the receipts column of the coming week against the forecast that produced it.

• If the first negative week moved closer, something in the receipts column is optimistic — find which line.
• If it moved further away without any decision being taken, the plan is being padded: the same failure with a friendlier face.
• If an invoice above the 50 000 zl threshold sits in the next two weeks, it carries the highest compensation step in the act, and it goes first regardless of who shouts loudest.

Where the machine helps and where this is plain arithmetic

None of the arithmetic on this page needs a model. A weighted average, a running balance and a sum of two amounts are operations a spreadsheet performed correctly forty years ago, and calling them intelligence would be dishonest. What a system adds is elsewhere: collecting the dates of service of invoices without anyone typing them, keeping supplier terms in one register rather than four inboxes, and producing the same measurement every Friday without a person remembering to run it. The counting forms are here; the cost of that layer is in what process automation costs a small business.

Which layer to add next is a separate decision, laid out in CRM or ERP: which system layer to add next; the wider picture is in restaurant automation: reservations, suppliers, reviews.

Frequently asked questions about supplier payment terms

What is the maximum payment term in a Polish commercial contract?

The term set in the contract may not exceed 60 days from the day the debtor was served the invoice or bill confirming the delivery or the service. The parties may expressly agree otherwise, provided the arrangement is not grossly unfair to the creditor. Where the debtor is a large entrepreneur and the creditor a micro, small or medium entrepreneur, the ceiling applies without that escape.

When does the thirty-day rule apply instead?

In three situations named in the act. Where the parties set a term longer than 30 days and the creditor is not a large entrepreneur, that creditor may claim statutory interest once 30 days have run from performance and service of the invoice. Where no term was set at all, interest runs after 30 days from performance. And where the debtor is a public body, the term itself may not exceed 30 days, or 60 where that body is a medical entity.

How much is the fixed recovery amount for late payment?

Three steps in euro, tied to the value of the obligation: 40 euro up to 5 000 zl, 70 euro above 5 000 zl and below 50 000 zl, 100 euro from 50 000 zl upward. The act converts them at the average euro rate announced by the National Bank of Poland on the last working day of the month preceding the month the payment fell due, so the zloty figure changes month to month and is taken on the date, not from a page.

Is the recovery amount due without sending a reminder?

Yes. It is owed from the day the creditor acquires the right to interest, without any reminder — no letter, no formal demand, no prior claim. That is what makes a short delay disproportionately expensive: the fixed part does not depend on the number of days, so it lands in full on a delay of three days and on a delay of three hundred.

How is the actual payment term measured?

Take every supplier invoice over a period, count the days from service of the invoice to payment, multiply each count by the amount of that invoice, add the products, divide by the total of the amounts. The result is days weighted by money. Compare it with the term the contract states; the difference is the part of the cash plan running on belief rather than facts.

Why weight the payment term by invoice amount?

Because a simple average hides the cases that matter. Ten small invoices paid immediately and one large invoice paid three months late produce a comfortable-looking average and an angry supplier. Weighting by amount lets the large invoice dominate, which matches how the counterparty experiences you: it is waiting for money, not for a document count.

What does a thirteen-week cash plan for a restaurant look like?

One row per week for the quarter ahead: a receipts column built from the demand forecast, a supplier payments column built from invoice terms, a separate line for payroll and contributions, and a closing balance carried forward. The number watched is not the size of the lowest balance but the date of the first negative week, because the date determines which levers remain.

Take one quarter of supplier invoices, calculate the actual payment term weighted by amounts, and put it next to the term your contracts state. The distance between those two numbers is usually the week where the cash plan breaks — and the rest of the restaurant material, from break-even to purchasing, sits together in the restaurant section.