Cash payments incremented by 10-50% of actual payment.
Whatever new range your purchases may have fallen to now becomes proportional to what you are buying and assumedly selling out the other end. As business declines you pay the same proportional amount to the old balance but less cash - and when business revives you'll pay the same proportion but more cash. Simple to understand, simple to administrate, simple to plan for both sides. It's been done for years by tons of customers vendor relationships. Your contact might be green and unaware.

The increment pays down oldest invoices.
That makes sense. A discusion of interest charges may be worthwhile. For instance - perhaps you don't make payments against interest - that waits till later - but you pay principle which eliminates new interest charges first and fastest.

Figure out what is a reasonable period to pay down the old invoices
Worst set of numbers 6 months to pay down
PITCH THIS set of numbers 24 months to pay down if debt is Less than $100k
PITCH THIS set of numbers 36 months to pay down if debt is More than $100k
Accept 12 months to pay down

how to figure out the incremental per-cent %.
Once you agree on the timeframe it's easy. Divide the agreed to overdue amount by the time period number of months to get the monthly target amount.
TARGET MONTHLY PAYDOWN = OVERDUE / TIME PERIOD
Now what's the expected monthly amount you will be buying? kinda in the current period? So the incremental % you are target to pay is the target monthly paydown divided by your new expected purchases and their payment amount to stay current. INCREMENTAL % = (TARGET MONTHLY PAYDOWN / EXPECTED MONTHLY PURCHASES) - 100%

How we can help you -- We are cost affordable and cost effective. We keep borrowers out of bankruptcy. We give third-party creditability to your company's AR & AP departments. All our efforts are hands on. We can turn around your company's cash flow problems.

Hockey Stick - This plan is very different to the previous somtimes more equal plan in two important aspects. First you proabaly owe quite a bit to the vendor and they'll end up breaking you if they don't provide quite a bit of relief quickly. As a result payments are lighter in the beginning and heavier and escalating faster later. Secondly, it's a fixed plan that's set in motion when agreed to and then expected to be relied upon - unless renegotiated.

The near term payment to overdue amounts should not be greater than your ability to pay it reliably.
Look, the business can't go forever on losses. Losses end up to be negative cash and that's why you're in the dog house. You've been taking slowed collections and paying operating expenses rather than cost of sales - vendor payments. So the plan has to cut expense so that collections can pay current vendor purchases and still leave enough money to pay current expenses. This is numero uno - must be done and if not - no one will accept your plan.

The later amounts need to be paid from increasing sales and profitability. don't forget.
If sales were soaring you wouldn't be restructuring your payables. They're not - and in this economic climate - they're not going to soar for quite some time. So get real and make a forecast on the real revenues you're going to produce. No pie in the sky - get it right and the vendors will support you. Get it wrong and it will be obvious ASAP - and you're screwed.

you know and they know you can renegotiate if things get worse - 1 maybe 2 times - but that's it.
You're not the only one who's paying slow and getting paid slow. Everyone is being paid slow. It's unavoidable in a recession. So assuming you can project the sales numbers right - you have to factor in the slowed collections you and everyone else on the planet are experiencing.

Get the Plan Right - We've averaged over a 95% success rate in negotiating a reduction and settlement of client debt. You can expect a total cost of 60-65 cents on the dollar of the assigned delinquent debt. This average total cost includes the reduced amount to the creditor and our fees. Because our settlement fees are based on a percent of the savings to YOU we have an incentive to achieve the greatest reduction possible. We're in total alignment with your goals. Nice.

Cash on the Barrelhead! - By the time you've gotten to negotiating overdue payables most customers don't have the cash to really swing a big deal in this area. But sometimes, companies do have the reserve and now is a good time to put some of the cash to work for deep payment discounts. Maybe if you don't have that much cash but the amount is relatively small, pehaps then it would be an opportunity.

The more cash - the deeper the discount.
If you're big - no matter what - it matters. But remember there's a fine line between being big enough to NOT want to do more with you and big enough to NEED to do more business with you. One shade either way and you're in clover or you're screwed. The balance is critical.

Settle small amounts with one time full payment discounts.
Vendors care about whom they're helping. Long term customers that have been faithful and dedicated and have historically been paying their bills get a lot of consideration from vendors for payment support and relief. Inversely those that are brand new customers get little empathy and little support as well. The key here is to make the right pitch - if you've got years of good will - use it - heavily. If you have very little good will, pitch the future don't pitch the relationship - since there's not much there to pitch.

Measure your position accurately - understanding the native willingness of the vendor to support the time and amount to be paid is the most valuable contribution we can make quickly. There are not 400 stories about how this works, there's 7 or 8 maybe 9 versions of this - and the first 2 versions make up 75% of the deals. So understanding how to quantify - how to get what is essentially in some form available to you - is the sweet spot. That's what we deliver - the sweet spot. We're calm and energy combined, with no loss of control for you.

put the amount you're willing to risk on the line - CHOOSE to be passive OR make it work for you
Willingness to convert what could be unsecured vendor debt competing for little value with other unsecureds in a bankruptcy could be high amongst vendors. If the company provides a note (a bank debt like document soon a sample will be posted here) - in many cases that improves the quality of the indebtedness of the vendor - he/she is still unsecured but the nature of the note puts him/her ahead of vendor payables. That's quite desirable. Now if the company has something tangible they can secure some or all of the note with - perhaps or perhaps not - that asset backing. Also in some cases the use of a personal signature to back some or all of the note should be considered. If you know the other side is there this may be a strong weapon. If you think the end is in sight it may be a pretty poor decision. But at the end of the day - you have to make some numbers about what you're willing to do and then actively engage that leverage. If it's zero you've got about that much leverage.

the more cash you pay the sooner, the more you can ask for
Your ability to organize a plan, get agreement and then make an initial payment on the plan is highly stimulated by the amount and speed you will pay at the point of agreement. Vendors want you to put your money where your mouth is. By saying I will do this, and I expect that, and then committing hard cash immediately behind it - that says a lot to the vendor. Plus of course they must make a balancing decision between getting the proposed cash amount right away along with the terms proposed or stay in the position they are now - stuck and chasing.

We can help you decide what to do. What we can do is provide you metrics to quantify your risks. Additionally we can quantify - qualitative risks together with you. On the one hand this engineered view is highly analytical and useful, but in the end it's 49% of the decision making unless the analysis supports your intellect and instinct. But if it correlates together with your intellect and instinct and helps guide it, and informs it - well - then hell it's really valuable. If you're insistent upon ignoring it - well it's still valuable.