Kholekta by DBiLL

Getting paid by government on time

A guide for the people who carry cash in businesses that supply government: chief financial officers, financial directors, finance managers and the founders who still do the collecting themselves.

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How long did your last government invoice take to pay?

If the answer is “longer than 30 days”, you are in large company. National and provincial departments paid 475,421 invoices late in the 2025/26 financial year, worth R45.3 billion. Two years earlier it was R35.1 billion. On 31 March 2026 they still held 88,403 unpaid invoices older than 30 days, worth R16.8 billion. Municipalities took 286 days on average to pay their creditors in 2023-24.

Some of that delay belongs to the buyer and no supplier can remove it. A large share is settled on the supplier’s side, often before the work starts. This page sets out which is which, and what your finance team can do about the part that is yours.

What late payment costs your business

Every ten days your clients take to pay ties up cash equal to about 2.7 percent of a year’s revenue. The arithmetic is 10 divided by 365.

Annual revenue	10 days	20 days	30 days	45 days
R50 million	R1.4m	R2.7m	R4.1m	R6.2m
R100 million	R2.7m	R5.5m	R8.2m	R12.3m
R250 million	R6.8m	R13.7m	R20.5m	R30.8m

A R100 million business that cuts the average age of its receivables by 20 days releases about R5.5 million in cash without winning a single new contract. That is money you stop borrowing on overdraft, stop explaining to your bank, and can put to payroll and suppliers.

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What the law says about the 30 days

Departments must pay within 30 days of receiving an invoice, unless the contract says otherwise (PFMA section 38(1)(f) and Treasury Regulation 8.2.3). Municipalities and municipal entities carry the same duty (MFMA sections 65(2)(e) and 99(2)(b)). Treasury now states that wilful or negligent late payment by an accounting officer is financial misconduct.

Two details decide how much that protects you:

The clock runs from the date the institution receives the invoice. In practice “received” means the complete pack. An invoice without its order number or acceptance record may never start the clock at all.
A contract can set a different period. If you signed 60 days, the contract governs. State-owned companies such as Eskom, Transnet and the SETAs treat the 30 days as best practice only, and your contract governs there too.

What a buyer needs before it can pay

In government and in large corporates, money moves when four records agree:

An authorised order. A purchase order, official order or signed contract, issued before the work. “A purchase order is money, just without the cash.” Read it, track it and bill against it.
An acceptance record. The buyer’s own confirmation that the work was delivered as ordered: a goods received note, an approved service entry sheet, a signed completion certificate or approved timesheets.
A compliant tax invoice. The VAT Act section 20 fields, the order number, and the buyer’s name exactly as the order spells it, matching the order and the acceptance record on quantity and value.
A current supplier record. In government, the Central Supplier Database with verified bank details and a green tax status.

The acceptance record stalls payment most often, and it is the one the supplier controls least. In SAP, an unapproved service entry sheet means the invoice cannot match and will not be paid. The United States deems a service accepted on day seven if nobody signs; the European Union caps verification at 30 days. South Africa has no such rule. Your only protection is what the contract says before the work starts.

Why your invoices stall

Our research ranks the causes by the weight of evidence behind them, and sorts them by who controls each one.

You can settle it before work starts	You can influence it early	Outside your control
The purchase order is in place, at the right value, for the right legal entity	Who approves your invoice, and who posts the goods receipt or service entry	The buyer’s budget and cash position
The acceptance record and its signatory are named in the contract	How fast disputes are raised and settled	Deliberate stretching of terms
The invoice carries every field the buyer’s system checks	Where the invoice is sent and how it is tracked	Insolvent municipalities
CSD, tax and bank records stay current	Escalation inside the buyer when payment stalls	Irregular contracts on the buyer’s side

Treasury lists the reasons departments give every year: inadequate budgets, system problems, CSD problems, disputed invoices, late processing and authorisation, and misfiled or unrecorded invoices. Its own root-cause analysis adds suppliers who send incorrect or incomplete invoices and supporting documents. That last one is yours to fix.

A real one from last week. On 29 October 2026 we looked at a client’s R5.7 million invoice to a metro. The purchase order existed and the evidence of delivery went with it. The invoice did not quote the order number, and it went to the CFO’s inbox instead of the metro’s invoices address. Both are five-minute fixes. Left alone, either can cost a month.

When an invoice is already late

The law gives you an escalation route, and almost nobody uses it. Treasury’s 30-day query address (30daysqueries@treasury.gov.za) received 402 supplier queries in 2025/26, worth R318 million, against 475,421 late invoices.

Step	When	To whom
1	Day 0	Accounts payable: the complete pack, with written acknowledgement of receipt
2	Day 31	Accounts payable and the project manager: a written reminder citing the regulation, invoice number and receipt date
3	About day 40	The CFO, then the accounting officer: a formal letter asking for the reason and a committed date
4	After the CFO step	National Treasury’s 30-day query address, with the pack and your follow-up log
5	If still unresolved	The Public Service Commission or the Public Protector
6	When the money matters more than the relationship	An attorney: demand, then summons

“If you just send it, that’s hoping.” Collecting is the follow-up cadence after the invoice goes out, and it starts on day 0.

Where the late money sits

At 31 March 2026 provincial departments held 98 percent of unpaid invoices older than 30 days. The Eastern Cape held the most by number (35,002 invoices) and Gauteng the most by value (R4.7 billion). Among national departments, Defence paid the most invoices late during the year (61,241). If most of your debtors book sits with provinces and municipalities, plan your cash around their real pattern and build the escalation into the project from the first invoice.

You just won a government contract

The cheapest moment to fix your payment route is between the award letter and the first milestone. Get the order number before you start. Name the acceptance document and who signs it in the special conditions of contract. Find the portal, the approver and the payment run date. Send a test invoice before the first real one.

How Kholekta works

Kholekta runs collections as a project alongside delivery, so the payment route is tested before the money is due. It came out of Thandwefika Tshabalala’s years as a project manager on ICT infrastructure projects, where he kept being asked why the project was not collecting. He built a collections playbook that started finance on the day the project started, and that business brought its receivables close to zero.

Stage	What you get
Your Starting Number	Your aged receivables read in days and rand, with the accounts that hold most of the cash named
Getting Paid on Time course	One day for your finance, project and sales people on the invoice specification each client needs
Weekly Cash Release	A working hour each week that clears stuck invoices one by one
Monthly Leadership Cash Review	Your executive sees what was released and what is still blocked, and decides on overrides
Day-90 Cash Result	Your new starting number against the first one, and the method written into your process

Kholekta cannot create budget in a buyer that has none. For those clients the work moves to contract terms, a documented receipt date and escalation, and your playbook records how that client really pays so you can plan around it.

Ten questions for your finance team

Do we have the purchase order, at the right value and for the right entity, before work starts?
Does the contract say which document proves acceptance, and who signs it?
Do we know who, by name, approves our invoice at each client?
Do we know who posts the goods receipt or service entry sheet our invoice must match?
Is our supplier record (CSD, tax, bank, portal) current at every client?
Do we have a written specification of what each client’s invoice must carry?
Have we sent a test invoice to each new client before the first real one?
Can we prove the date each client received our complete invoice pack?
Do we review debtors every week, and escalate on an agreed ladder?
Do we know our average age of receivables today, and what it was three months ago?

Three or more “no” answers usually mean cash is waiting in the process.

Start here

Start with one stuck invoice

Bring one invoice that should have been paid by now. In 30 minutes we will find why it is stuck, who can move it, and what to change so the next one goes through. There is no charge for the call.

If you want the whole debtors book read, Your Starting Number is the next step: send your aged receivables report and within five working days you get your average days outstanding, the rand released per 10 days, the five accounts to clear first and why each is stuck. R18,000 excluding VAT, fixed, credited against the programme if you continue within 30 days.

Book a Stuck Invoice Diagnostic · Email thando@dbill.co.za · Call Thandwefika Tshabalala on 079 063 8221

The articles in this guide

Download: The 30-day payment rule: a brief for government suppliers (PDF)

Sources: National Treasury, Annual Report on Non-Compliance with Payment of Suppliers’ Invoices within 30 Days, 2023/24 to 2025/26; Auditor-General, MFMA consolidated outcomes 2023-24; PFMA, Treasury Regulations and MFMA; Treasury Instruction 09 of 2017/18. This guide is general information for suppliers and does not replace advice from an attorney on a specific claim.