Policy: Partner/Trade Commercial & Payment Terms

Company Position: 

Property Providers’ vision is to “Help People Live Better” by being Sydney’s most flexible residential rental company. This vision is driven by three core values: Passion, Performance and Partnership. Importantly, we seek to transcend the transaction by striving to build strong foundations of mutual investment, respect, risk and commitment. We try and do so with all stakeholders including but not limited to trade partners, suppliers, tenants, short-term rental guests, employees and our property owner partners. 

Document Purpose: 

The purpose of this document is to clearly communicate Property Providers’ policy in relation to trade partner invoices, particularly within the property portfolio that we manage. 

Background: 

Property Providers aims to adopt a partnership-centric approach across all our dealings with key stakeholders as well as within the design of our policies, procedures, and processes. We would like to accommodate special requests and urgent payment demands, however, we do need to maintain a sense of balance and fairness.    

Policy Objectives:

  1. To be clear, consistent and reasonable in relation to the agency’s position and capabilities.
  2. To manage expectations about urgent payment requests.
  3. To proactively anticipate and avoid problems that may arise while minimizing touch points, conflict, and cost. 

Agency Policy:

  • Our overriding payment terms are 30 days from receipt of invoice and all invoices must be provided in a non-editable PDF format. 
  • All company related invoices should be sent to accounts@propertyproviders.com.au and all property related invoice should be sent to pm@propertyproviders.com.au
  • Property related payments are made between the 1st and the 7th of each calendar month. Repair and maintenance invoices received between the 26th to the 1st of each month may be subject to 40-day payment terms due to the required time to quality control work and finance processing time. 
  • Payments will only be made to registered, insured and appropriately qualified/skilled professionals. All partners/suppliers/trades are required to provide their full company details by completing the registration process.  See the registration link here. By default, payments will be made in the form of bank transfer (under no circumstances will cash, cheque, overseas payments or split payments for raw materials or subcontractors be considered).  
  • All property related invoices are required to be addressed to “The Property Owner care of Property Providers.”  Unique references must be included in invoices for each job  This can come in the form of job numbers., work orders, or purchase orders.  These unique numbers are to match what is provided to the partner within our work orders.  If revised or additional invoices are sent for the same job the original invoice number or variance of invoice number (i.e. Invoice 101 and Invoice 101A) are required (no exceptions will be made).  We reserve the right to return invoices to the partner to include this notation should it not be compliant. In this case, the property related invoice date will need to be amended accordingly to when it has been updated. d
  • All trade invoices for work completed in properties require owner approval prior to them being paid. In the case of a dispute in payment, the agency will follow our dispute resolution process whereby we will try and resolve under three touch points and will do our best to extract fair and reasonable offers to solve whatever is in question. Our role is not to arbitrate or mediate.  After these three touch points, if the matter is not resolved, the agency will introduce parties to each other to resolve it directly. 
  • If an owner does not have adequate funds in their account to pay the entirety of an invoice, part of the invoice may be paid from the money that is held in trust.  The agency will endeavor to collect funds from the owner to pay the invoice in its entirety. However, if the trade would like to pursue the owner for payment directly that is fine. 
  • We aim to pay our partners quickly.  Late invoices create confusion and ultimately conflict.  Invoices received <30 days of a job being completed will be declined/rejected.
  • To protect all stakeholders, five working days’ notice is required (in writing and supported by phone calls) to set up a new vendor or an existing partner to request a change to their banking details.     
  • All invoices must include complete payment details including account name, BSB, account number (as well as unique identifying number outlined above).  Property Providers will not take responsibility if the banking details provided are incomplete or incorrect and therefore result in a delay in payment.  
  • For exceptions or payments under 30 days, Property Providers may choose to pay via credit card, provided the work completed is to a satisfactory standard and that the owner has funds within their ledger. Our position is that most credible businesses should have a merchant facility. Exceptions will require a written request and approval from Senior Management. The agency will review requests on a case-by-case basis and reserve the exclusive right to approve or decline the request based on individual circumstances. Where a transaction is approved for credit card payment, the amount must be less than $1000.00. The agency will not pay merchant fees on the basis that the partner’s request is to be paid faster and outside our general payment terms.  
  • Once funds have left our account, we do not have jurisdiction and we are unable to make any further payments (or “re-pay” funds) if there is a problem that is out of our ecosystem. Any funds that bounce back into our account will be reprocessed within seven working days.   Property Providers are not responsible for following up on the money from the bank of origin to the account to which it is being transferred.

Rationale:

  • Property Providers believe that the basis and mechanics of this policy support “Partnership” which is one of our core company values. 
  • Property Providers choose to partner with stable, established, and well-run businesses that do not have urgent/critical cash flow issues and quality concerns.
  •  Adequate time and resources are required to do a job properly (for everyone trade, agency etc.).
  • Property Providers operates in a trust accounting environment for the portfolio that we manage which naturally increases the time and complexity of managing other people’s money. 

Effective Date:  This policy is effective Jan 1st , 2022. 

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