Worked example · paying suppliers
One supplier payment run: eleven days to prepare, one act to release.
A payment run is a prepared list, not a payment. Nearly all of the work happens before it exists — bills captured and matched to what was ordered, a duplicate found, a rate query raised, a change of bank details refused until it could be checked, the whole thing sized against cash that is genuinely uncommitted rather than against a bank balance. What is left at the end is a single act: somebody with authority releases the money, from the business’s own bank, on the business’s own credentials. At Par never moves, releases or executes client money — that act belongs to the person the outside world holds responsible for it.
Illustrative worked example. Not a customer case study. Thornbury Civil Design is an invented twenty-two-person engineering design practice, and every supplier, reference, date and figure below is invented with it. Figures are in dirhams, and would read the same in any currency.
Twelve bills arrived. Nine reached the run.
Thornbury Civil Design pays its suppliers on a fortnightly cycle, every second Thursday. Twelve supplier bills either fell due in the window or arrived during it. The run put in front of the business on the Thursday morning had nine lines on it, totalling 195,830, and every one of them had already been matched, evidenced and dated by the time anybody was asked to look at it.
| Supplier · reference | Amount | What it pays for — and what opens behind the line | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pinfold Survey · INV-3312 | 46,800 | Subcontract topographic survey, February phase. Opens to the signed order, the agreed rate schedule, and the site records the hours were drawn from. | In 3 days |
| Oakhaven Recruitment · 7741 | 38,250 | Two contract technicians, six weeks. Opens to timesheets approved by the person they reported to, at the rate in the placement agreement. | Today |
| Greyfriars Property · Q3-118 | 31,500 | Quarterly office service charge. Opens to the lease schedule and the previous quarter’s invoice for comparison. | In 9 days |
| Wrayford Structural · 2201 | 27,300 | Structural checking on two schemes. Opens to the appointment letter and the stage certificate signed by Thornbury’s project lead. | In 5 days |
| Halston Plant Hire · H-4460 | 22,400 | Survey equipment hire, four weeks. Opens to the hire agreement and the off-hire confirmation — which is the document that stops a hire being billed past the day the kit came back. | In 6 days |
| Verity Cloud Systems · R-90441 | 12,940 | Annual licence renewal, twenty-two seats. Opens to the renewal notice and last year’s invoice. The seat count is checked against the payroll, not against the renewal. | In 6 days |
| Ellison Drafting · 214 | 9,600 | Contract drafting, eighty hours. Opens to the purchase order and the approved timesheet. An individual contractor, on the same cycle and the same checks as the companies. | Today |
| Latchmere Print · 8902 | 4,180 | Tender document production. Opens to the delivery note signed at reception on the day it arrived. | In 11 days |
| Merrow Utilities · 55-2207 | 2,860 | Metered supply, one quarter. Opens to the meter reading and the four previous bills, which is how a misread gets caught before it is paid rather than after. | In 8 days |
Two properties of that list matter more than the amounts. Every line opens — the evidence sits at the line, not somewhere retrievable in principle if anybody ever asks. And the run is sized against cash that is actually free: payroll on the 25th, a rent instalment already committed, and a customer receipt that has been promised but has not landed are all taken out of the figure the run is built against. A bank balance is a fact, not a spending limit.
Assembling this took eleven days of ordinary work spread across the fortnight. Releasing it takes one person about thirty seconds. That ratio is the entire argument for leaving the thirty seconds where they are.
A bill already paid, and a rate nobody agreed to.
Twelve bills, nine lines. Three did not make it into the run. Two of them are ordinary and are dealt with here. The third has a section to itself.
The one already paid. Latchmere Print issued invoice 8871 for 6,240 on the 2nd, and a statement on the 9th showing 6,240 outstanding under a different heading and a different reference. Invoice 8871 had been settled in the previous run. Duplicates almost never arrive as two identical documents — the second copy usually turns up wearing different clothes: a statement, a chaser carrying a new reference, a re-issue after an address change, a scanned copy from a second contact at the same supplier. So the question asked of every incoming bill is not “have we seen this reference before”. It is whether this amount has already been paid to this supplier for this piece of work. Latchmere was told in one line the same day, rather than left to discover it at their own month end.
The one at the wrong rate. Calverton Ground Investigation billed 33,900 for thirty days of site work at a day rate of 1,130. The rate schedule attached to the order says 980, which makes the bill 4,500 more than the agreement supports. That is not a rounding difference and it is not a judgement call. It is also not something to fix quietly: the bill was neither adjusted nor paid, because reducing a supplier’s invoice without telling the supplier is a decision dressed up as an administrative act. It was queried with the rate schedule attached, and it stays on the payables ledger as owed and disputed rather than disappearing until somebody replies.
Thornbury could have released the undisputed 29,400 and held the balance. The managing director chose to hold the whole line until Calverton answered, on the grounds that a part payment invites an argument about which part. Either answer is defensible, and neither of them is an accounting decision.
A supplier’s bank account changed by email. That line stayed out.
Marchwood Testing Labs had billed 18,700 for materials testing on a school project. The work was done, the bill was right, it matched the report it belonged to, and it fell due in four days. It would have been the tenth line on the run.
On the 9th an email arrived from the address Marchwood always writes from, signed by the name that always signs, formatted the way Marchwood always formats. It asked that payments from now on go to a different account at a different bank, and it had a letter on Marchwood’s letterhead attached. One detail sat slightly off: the account name read Marchwood Testing Services, and every previous payment had gone to Marchwood Testing Labs.
The details were not updated and the line did not go into the run. That was the whole decision, and it required believing nothing bad about anybody.
- The sending address is not evidence. A message arrives from the address it appears to arrive from, right up until it does not, and a recipient cannot tell the two apart by looking.
- The letterhead is not evidence. A document that arrives attached to a request is part of the request, not a check on it.
- Four years of good history is not evidence. A long, comfortable supplier relationship is precisely the kind a payee change is worth attempting against.
- A telephone number in the signature is not evidence, because it came in the same message as the thing it would be used to confirm.
- The name mismatch is not proof of anything either. Companies restructure; trading names and registered names differ constantly. It is a reason to check, not a verdict.
What ran instead was a check against a channel the request had not supplied: the telephone number on the signed appointment, held on file since the engagement began. The named contact was on leave. Marchwood’s main line answered, and the person who answered could not confirm a banking change — which is the correct answer for them to give, and worth saying plainly rather than treating as an obstacle.
Marchwood was told exactly where things stood, in the original thread and again by telephone: the invoice is agreed, the payment is prepared, and it goes out once the account change has been confirmed through the number already held. A supplier that has genuinely changed banks is protected by the same check that catches one that has not.
Thornbury’s managing director saw one line: Marchwood Testing Labs · 18,700 · prepared, not released — payee bank details changed by email on the 9th, not yet confirmed through a number Marchwood did not supply. One sentence, no decision taken out of his hands. He could have overridden it — his money, his authority, his supplier — and he chose not to.
How it ended. On the 14th the contact rang back on the number held on file and confirmed the change: a bank migration after the group refinanced. The details were read back digit by digit, recorded with the verification attached to them — who was called, on which number, on what date, and what was confirmed — and the payment went out in the following run, four days later than it otherwise would have.
Stated honestly: this is an ordinary payment-verification discipline, not a security guarantee. No process removes the risk of a fraudulent payment instruction. What a process does is make sure an instruction is checked against something its sender did not get to choose.
Thirty seconds, one screen, and the part that is not handed over.
On Thursday morning the run went to Thornbury’s managing director. Not a spreadsheet attached to an email: one screen carrying the nine lines and the total, each line openable to its bill and its evidence, the three excluded bills named with a reason each, the cash position before and after, and the date each payment would land.
He changed one thing. Greyfriars’ service charge, due in nine days, came out of the run and moved to the next one, because a customer payment he had been expecting had not arrived and he wanted to keep the buffer. That is the point of presenting a run rather than performing one. It is a proposal, and the person reading it holds facts the preparation never had.
- Eight lines, 164,330, released by Thornbury, from Thornbury’s bank, on Thornbury’s credentials. At Par holds no banking access, no payment mandate, no card and no token — on this engagement or any other.
- Authority is per line, not per run. Striking one line does not send the other eight back to be rebuilt, and the record keeps what was proposed alongside what was actually released.
- Nothing goes by default. A run that releases unless somebody stops it is a release with an opt-out. Thursday could have passed with no decision at all, and the consequence would have been nine lines still sitting there on Friday.
- A struck line is not a deleted line. Greyfriars is still owed 31,500, still carries its due date, and appears at the top of the next run without anybody having to remember it.
This reads as a strength rather than a caveat because of the arithmetic of the fortnight. Eleven days of preparation; thirty seconds of authority. Handing over the thirty seconds would save the business almost nothing measurable, and would remove the only step in the whole sequence performed by somebody who did not prepare it. A provider that both builds the run and releases it has nobody outside the work looking at the result.
Released is not cleared. Settlement is recorded when the bank says so.
A released run is an instruction. It is not a set of settled bills, and a payables ledger that marks them settled the moment the button is pressed has recorded an intention. Seven of the eight showed on the bank the same afternoon. Ellison Drafting’s payment appeared the following morning because it travelled by a different route — ordinary, and worth knowing rather than worrying about.
- Each of the eight bills was matched to the specific bank line that paid it and marked settled, with that line held against it as the evidence. Eight bills, eight lines, nothing residual.
- Remittance advices went out to the eight suppliers, so the ledger at the other end can be squared without anyone having to telephone Thornbury to ask what a payment covered.
- Greyfriars stayed open at 31,500, on its own due date, first line of the next run.
- Calverton stayed open at 33,900, marked as queried with the rate schedule attached — not hidden, and not ageing quietly as though nobody had noticed.
- Marchwood stayed open at 18,700, marked prepared and held, with the verification outstanding rather than the payment forgotten.
| Position | Amount | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Settled this run | 164,330 | Eight bills, each matched to the bank line that paid it, each carrying its evidence. |
| Scheduled, next run | 31,500 | Deferred by the business, not by the process. Keeps its own due date. |
| Prepared, held | 18,700 | Ready to pay. Waiting on a confirmed bank detail, not on a decision. |
| Queried | 33,900 | A rate that does not agree with what was signed. Whether it is owed at all is not yet settled. |
| Entered, not yet due | 106,500 | Recorded, evidenced, and allocated to the runs they fall into. |
Nothing in that table had to be looked up on the Friday morning. Each figure was a consequence of the fortnight having been prepared rather than assembled, which is the only reason a founder can read a payables position in under a minute.
Where At Par fits — and the limits.
The fortnight above is ordinary At Par work. Supplier bills captured as they arrive and matched to what was ordered; duplicates and rate differences raised before a run exists rather than found afterwards; payee changes treated as unconfirmed until they have been confirmed through a channel the request did not supply; the run built by due date against cash that is genuinely free; every line presented open, with its evidence; and settlement recorded against the bank line that produced it. A qualified accountant (ACCA) is accountable for the work. It sits inside bookkeeping and month-end close, or the wider arrangement described under full-service accounting.
The general boundary this example sits inside is set out in who controls payments, filings and communications, and the reason a run should never release itself belongs to what should never happen automatically in outsourced finance. Neither of those is re-argued here; this page is the demonstration underneath them.
The honest limits are worth naming. No provider can guarantee that a fraudulent payment instruction will be caught, and nothing above is offered as a security promise. Whether to pay a disputed bill, whether to defer a supplier, and what to do about a rate that was never agreed are commercial calls belonging to the business. And a payment run is only as good as the bookkeeping under it — the document side of that discipline is walked through in one messy supplier invoice.
Asked by owners who approve payments on a Thursday morning.
What should a supplier payment run look like when it is put in front of an owner for approval? +
One screen rather than a spreadsheet: every line with its supplier, amount, due date and what it pays for; each line openable to the bill and the evidence behind it; the cash position before and after; and, just as importantly, the bills deliberately left out with a reason against each. Approval given against a total alone is not approval, because the person giving it has no way to tell a correct run from a plausible one.
How does the same supplier bill end up being paid twice? +
Rarely through carelessness, and almost never as two identical documents. The second copy arrives dressed differently — a statement showing the balance, a chaser carrying a new reference, a re-issue after an address change, a scan forwarded by a second contact at the same supplier. Add two people who can both pay, or a standing instruction running alongside manual payments, and the duplicate looks new to everybody. The check that catches it asks whether this amount has already gone to this supplier for this work, not whether the reference has been seen before.
Is it reasonable to hold a supplier payment while a change of bank details is checked? +
Yes, and the asymmetry is what makes it obvious. Paying a few days late costs a conversation with a supplier who is usually understanding once told why. Paying into an account that turns out not to be theirs costs the whole amount, and whether any of it comes back is out of the payer’s hands. The right handling is to say so plainly rather than go quiet: the invoice is agreed, the payment is prepared, and it is released once the change has been confirmed. A supplier whose change is genuine is protected by exactly the same step.
What does building a payment run against available cash rather than the bank balance mean? +
It means subtracting what is already spoken for before deciding what can go out. Payroll due next week, a rent instalment already committed, a tax amount being held, and a card balance about to be collected are all money the balance still shows and the business cannot use. Working the other way — treating the balance as the ceiling — is how a business pays suppliers comfortably on the 12th and cannot make payroll on the 25th. Money expected in but not yet arrived does not belong in the figure either.
Should a payment be recorded as settled when the run is released? +
No. Releasing a run is an instruction to a bank, and instructions do not always complete: a payment can be rejected on a name check, returned by the receiving bank, held for review, or sit in a queue over a weekend. Settlement belongs to the bank line that proves the money left, matched to the specific bill it paid. Until that exists, the honest state is released and not yet cleared, which is a different sentence from settled and carries a different next action.
Can a single line be taken out of a payment run, and what happens to it? +
It should be removable without rebuilding anything, and it should not vanish when it is. Authority belongs to each line rather than to the run as a whole, so an owner can defer one supplier while releasing the rest. What matters afterwards is the record: the amount stays owed, keeps its due date, appears on the next run automatically, and the fact that it was proposed and deliberately not released is kept alongside the fact that eight others were. A deferral nobody can see later becomes an unexplained late payment.
Should an outsourced bookkeeper have access to the company bank account? +
Read access is normal and usually necessary — statements and feeds are the raw material of reconciliation, and withholding them mostly means somebody emails PDFs around instead. Payment rights are a separate grant and deserve a separate decision. The practical test is to open the banking platform and look at what the credential is actually permitted to do, because a permission that includes payment is a permission to pay whatever anyone intends. At Par holds no banking access, no payment mandate and no card on any engagement.
How often should supplier payments be run? +
On a fixed cycle that suppliers can be told about, rather than whenever someone gets to it. A weekly or fortnightly run concentrates the checking, makes the cash planning real, and gives a supplier a straight answer about when they will be paid. Ad-hoc payments are the expensive pattern: each one is decided alone, without the others in view, which is how the same bill gets paid twice and how a large payment goes out three days before payroll. Genuinely urgent items still get paid out of cycle — deliberately, and as exceptions rather than as the norm.
Send us a fortnight of supplier bills. We’ll come back with the run — and the lines we would hold.
Whatever has actually arrived: invoices, statements, the email asking you to pay somewhere new. We will tell you what we would pay, what we would query, what we would hold and why. You would still be the one releasing it.
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Reviewed by an ACCA on the At Par team · Last updated 29 July 2026 · Illustrative worked example. Not a customer case study. Thornbury Civil Design, every supplier named and every figure shown are invented. See what we actually do.