LFB Late Payments - Supplementary Request
Case reference FOI2025/01141
Received 15 October 2025
Published 19 March 2026
Request
In respect of suppliers which were not paid in within 30 days for the period starting 1 April 2023, additional data fields requested from finance system:
Invoice due date;
Invoice received date;
Invoice approved date;
Invoice payment terms;
Reason for invoice query/dispute/delay.
Response
Our Finance department have provided the following response to the additional categories of data you have requested below:
Invoice received date
We do not record this information. In the current system (SAP) valid invoices received are swept directly into the payment system by the system itself. Invoices received manually (in both SAP and, previously, Masterpiece) are recorded with the date on which they were logged in the system. In either case, the date it enters the system is the de facto date of receipt.
Invoice approved date
We do not record this information. In practice, under both systems, an approved invoice is paid on the last payment run available that will not make it overdue; or, where it is overdue by the time it is approved, on the first available payment run. As such, a proxy approval date can be estimated 'by other means' – the system does not record an actual date.
Invoice payment terms
This is recorded at the level of the individual invoice but is not a standard field at reporting level. As such, the information could only be supplied by looking at each individual invoice which, with over 45,000 entries, would exceed the cost of compliance limits identified in Section 12 (if you would like a formal cost exemption calculation please let us know).
Reason for invoice query/dispute/delay.
No such reasons are recorded in the system.
You also asked for the “Invoice due date” which de do hold and record (in both our current system SAP and, previously, Masterpiece). I have updated the tables for each financial year to include this and updated the 2025/26 financial year data to the end of February 2026. These are attached below as PDF documents “202324 Updated”, “202425 Updated” and “202526 Updated”.
Documents
This is London Fire Brigade's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.