Check Early-Payment Discounts Against Your Return Floor — Free
A two-percent discount for paying twenty days early is a return no bank prints. Convert each offer into its implied annual return and compare it with the floor your cash actually needs.
The proof surface
Late-payment tallies work out what a debtor owes for paying late. This reads the same clause from the paying side: what annual return each early-payment discount implies once the cash leaves your account sooner.
Why the flat version breaks
Reading the discount as a price reduction
The percent is small because the period is short; the annualised figure is the comparable one.
Ignoring the cash-flow risk of paying early
A discount taken while payroll is tight is borrowing at the rate the discount implies.
Comparing discounts across different day counts
A one-percent offer for ten days is a stronger instrument than one percent for sixty, and the chart shows which.
How to work the early payment chart
One row per invoice or supplier term — the discount percent first, the days the payment moves earlier second. Two percent for twenty days early is a different instrument from two percent for sixty.
Payment terms honoured at day ten instead of day thirty move the cash twenty days, whatever the invoice date arithmetic suggests.
The annual return your business needs from spare cash — your cost of capital, your best alternative, or the rate you would demand to lend to anyone else. Fifteen percent is demanding; three is cautious.
The chart shows the implied annual return per offer and flags the weak ones. A two-percent discount for twenty days implies roughly thirty-seven percent a year; a half-percent discount for twenty implies about nine — below a fifteen-percent floor, that one is declined politely.
What the early payment chart replaces
| Question | Before | Visible working |
|---|---|---|
| Reading the discount as a price reduction | The percent is small because the period is short; the annualised figure is the comparable one. | Use the days the cash actually moves |
| Ignoring the cash-flow risk of paying early | A discount taken while payroll is tight is borrowing at the rate the discount implies. | Set the return floor |
| Comparing discounts across different day counts | A one-percent offer for ten days is a stronger instrument than one percent for sixty, and the chart shows which. | Keep the offers that clear the floor |
A local arithmetic aid replaces hand calculation, not expert review. No paid AI service is needed.
Run it on the samples, right here
FIRST-LOAD
Input is processed locally and a draft is saved automatically in this browser profile when storage is available. Reset to sample clears that draft; Pro history has its own clear button. A state link encodes your inputs in its URL: share only non-sensitive rows. Browser history, clipboard and anyone receiving the link may retain it. Optional AI use below leaves this device; it is not required.
Discount arithmetic on the terms you supply. Not financial, credit, tax or investment advice; confirm the invoice terms, your cash position and the accounting treatment of discounts with your accountant before changing payment behaviour.
Data note: Everything runs in this browser tab on the early payment chart: your invoice | discount percent | days the payment moves earlier stays on this device, nothing is uploaded, and the reading is rebuilt only when you press run.
Go deeper: the companion app files the same reading as a plotted bar chart sheet
The article demo above runs without limits. The companion app keeps a local history, exports the rows as CSV, prints the early payment chart reading, and holds your drafts on this device — one free run, then $ 4 one-time for the layer that keeps filing.
The early payment chart reading is complete for free. The optional $4 layer adds print, row CSV and the last five local reading summaries; it does not add hidden answers. Checkout is not configured yet; the article demo remains unlimited.
Open the check early-payment discounts against your return floor companionBoundary
Discount arithmetic on the terms you supply. Not financial, credit, tax or investment advice; confirm the invoice terms, your cash position and the accounting treatment of discounts with your accountant before changing payment behaviour.
What this is built on
- Method: The annual return your business needs from spare cash — your cost of capital, your best alternative, or the rate you would demand to lend to anyone else. Fifteen percent is demanding; three is cautious.
- All sample records are invented examples. The app does not fetch measurements, policies, files or personal records.
- Google’s official pricing page, fetched 2026-09-29, lists free-tier access including AI Studio. Optional formatting only; limits and availability can change. Free-tier content may be used to improve products. Never paste private records there.
Before: The percent is small because the period is short; the annualised figure is the comparable one. After: the early payment chart shows the working beside each named row so the reader can change the assumption and inspect the consequence.
Optional AI formatting, not calculation
For this early payment chart, use the free AI Studio interface only if available to you, with no paid API key. Manual entry completes the same workflow for free. Supply only fictional or non-sensitive notes. Review its output against the source; never paste unresolved questions into the numeric rows.
Format my non-sensitive notes for a early payment chart. Return plain rows only: invoice | discount percent | days the payment moves earlier. Preserve supplied quantities exactly. Do not guess missing values; list questions separately. Do not calculate or add advice. I will check every row before pasting into the local tool.
Accepted schema: invoice | discount percent | days the payment moves earlier. No AI response is executed as code.