Years ago I had annual contracts with the Army Corps of Engineers in Texas. I shared repair and maintenance duties with two other contractors at three major lakes in North Texas.
Damn the government was super slow pay back then. It wasn't unusual to wait sixty days or more for my money. It got to the point it was almost breaking me and they weren't at all cooperative when I would call them crying for payment. Then one day I got hold of a nice lady that understood my concerns. She told me that I wasn't being paid right away because I wasn't discounting my invoices. WHAT HELL? I have to wait for months AND discount my invoices too. What a bunch of crap!!!!! I had a discount amount of 10 or 15 percent rolling around in my head when she suggested I should discount my invoices. No friggin way!
She told me to calm down and listen - so I did.
Seems that congress had passed the "Prompt Payment Bill" because they knew they had issues with getting people paid in a reasonable amount of time. To participate in the Prompt Payment Program one had only to discount their invoices. Her suggested amount was somewhere between 1/2 and 2-1/2 percent. HOLY **** IS THAT ALL?????
From that day forward I authorized them to take a discount over the phone and I had my first check in two days. From there on in I routinely discounted every invoice from 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 percent and always had my money within ten days without fail. Like she told me... When someone is spending millions and billions of dollars those discounts start to add up quickly.
I learned a valuable lesson from that lady that day and over the years I have discounted large invoices never more than 2-1/2% and I have (almost) always been paid promptly. It takes a big-spender company to appreciate the discounts tho.
Mall owners and mall management companies are usually big spenders.