Getting Paid For Your Contract

You have been awarded a contract with the government. You have manufactured your product and shipped it. Now you want to get paid for the work you have done. The agency you contracted with is obliged to pay you for your services if you followed the guidelines. But what are the guidelines and how do you know if you followed them? The following is the information you need to know in order for your small business to receive payments from the government.

First and foremost, you need to be sure that you have followed the quality assurance guidelines stated within your contract. You should already know that the government will not pay for inferior products or services. So be absolutely certain you have lived up to your end of the deal. Once the government agency accepts what you have to offer all you will need then is a legitimate invoice for what you have sold.

A legitimate invoice is one that is: electronic, properly dated, contains the contract number, description of product (quantity, unit price, etc.), contains shipping and payment terms, contains contact information, and includes any other important information set out by the contract. Invoices that do not meet these criteria are rejected and slow down the payment process. In the case of a defective invoice, a new invoice will be requested so that payment can be processed. Oftentimes it is advisable to use a government invoice form. These forms include all of the information that pertain to invoices. This way all information required of the invoice can be submitted and your payments will be received in a timely manner.

By law the government is required to pay you for your products or services within 30 days upon receipt of invoice. If the invoice is rejected, it will be sent back within 7 days after the billing office has received it, including descriptions of the reasons why it was rejected. A corrected form must then be resubmitted and placed back on the 30 day schedule for payment, greatly slowing down the overall process. This is yet another reason why the invoice must be correct the first time it is submitted. Invalid invoices increase the wait time for you to receive payment from the government, in affect slowing down your business.

The government now also requires the Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) method for all government made payments, whenever possible. It is important to get registered in the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) database for this requirement. If your business is not registered in CCR or if your information is not up to date, the government can suspend payment until registration or updates are made and acceptable. If an EFT is impossible to make, the government will make out a check and send it to you. However, the quickest and most efficient way to get your money is through an EFT.