黑洞社区

Any subcontractors hit by delayed payments as a result of Galliford Try鈥檚 recent takeover of Miller Construction have been urged to put work they are doing for the company on hold.

Galliford Try acquired Miller Construction in July and ceased processing payments to Miller鈥檚 supply chain last month during a switch over to the main group鈥檚 accounting system.

In a letter to Miller subcontractors last month, seen by 黑洞社区, Galliford Try informed them that the processing of invoices would be suspended for just over a fortnight from 13 November until last Friday, when it said the accounting system would be 鈥渇ully functional鈥�.

In an update Galliford Try told 黑洞社区 the changeover to the new system has now been completed.

During the downtime, Miller Construction suppliers were warned that no purchase orders would be raised, invoices processed or payments made. Galliford said it would be unable to deal with payment queries or issue payments while data was being loaded on to the new system because it could not access enquiry or input screens.

Rudi Klein (pictured), chief executive of the Specialist Engineering Contractors Group, said any firms that had suffered from payments being on hold could 鈥渟uspend any further work for Galliford Try鈥�, which he said should pay interest on any overdue sums.

鈥淭his kind of action is to be deplored given the serious difficulties that many small firms are in as they attempt to climb out of the recession with no or little access to finance,鈥� he said.

Klein added that Galliford鈥檚 action reinforced the general case for project bank accounts, where all contractors on a project are paid from a central pot.

A Galliford Try spokesperson said: 鈥淲e are delighted to be able to say that the changeover of our integrated accounting and reporting systems has now been completed successfully.

鈥淒uring this period, we have worked tirelessly to ensure that all payments were made to our supply chain in a timely manner.

鈥淚n an IT project of such scale there is always the risk of encountering a technical issue and Galliford Try encourages any supplier who believes they may have been inconvenienced as a result to contact us as soon as possible.鈥�