Supply Chain Partner Payment

All our supply chain partners are required to prequalify at the appropriate level via Constructionline. Constructionline helps us validate that our supply chain partners meet our standards in areas including health & safety and management systems.

Our Constructionline requirements are:

  • For suppliers – Associate, free to complete with only sections C1, C3 and C4 of the form required
  • For subcontractors and some high-risk categories for goods and services – Gold

To help you understand the requirements of Constructionline accreditation, please visit Constructionline’s important documents page. Constructionline’s support pages will also help you complete your application.

Applying for payment

To apply for payment, you must have a valid Purchase Order number and submit your invoice via our Tradex e-invoicing system. Depending on which part of our business you are applying for payment from, the Purchase Order number may take a different format. To make sure you have a valid Purchase Order number, please see Our Guide to Balfour Beatty Purchase Orders.

Dispute resolution process

We are committed to fair dealing with all of our supply chain partners and transparency and timely resolution of disputed items. The key principles in this process are:

Disputed invoices will be identified by internal business stakeholders initially and raised directly with the supply chain partner

  • Supply chain partner can query invoices with our Central Accounts Payable team in which case they are passed to the relevant business stakeholder for resolution
  • If a resolution cannot be reached between the business stakeholder and the supply chain partner, as a point of escalation the disputed invoices should then be raised with the local Procurement contact by the business stakeholder, providing details of the invoice in question and nature of the dispute
  • Disputes will be assessed internally by the business stakeholder and local Procurement contact to judge accuracy and value
  • If the disputed invoice is deemed appropriate, the Procurement contact will liaise with the account management (or other appropriate contact) within the supply chain partner organisation to review and resolve  
  • If a resolution cannot be reached between the Procurement contact and the supply chain partner organisation, appropriate escalations within the respective organisations will be made
  • Where it is not possible to reach agreement, a number of potential dispute resolution methods for example mediation, adjudication, expert determination, litigation and /or arbitration, may be used

Tradex

Tradex allows you to instantly submit invoices electronically and helps us to pay you quicker. Using it means that all invoices are received in standard format, resulting in fewer errors and through Purchase Order validation, Tradex ensures only invoices with active Purchase Orders are accepted. For plant items, hire dates can also be entered.

As a supply chain partner, there are two different ways that you can use Tradex:

  • Tradex Active – you can submit invoices, free of charge, via an online form on the website. This solution is recommended for those who typically submit less than 300 invoices per annum.
  • Tradex Integrated – this paid for solution allows you to integrate your systems with Tradex. It is recommended for supply chain partners who submit more than 300 invoices per annum. You only need to pay once to use this system with all companies who use Tradex. If you would like to set up Tradex Integrated, please contact einvoicingqueries@balfourbeatty.com

To use Tradex, supply chain partners require a trading relationship account for each of the Balfour Beatty entities they deal with.

For more information on Tradex, please visit their website. The below guides will also help you to use Tradex.

If you are experiencing problems with invoice matching please contact cscaccountspayable@balfourbeatty.com.

For Tradex system issues including new account creation, please contact einvoicingqueries@balfourbeatty.com.