Struggling to Get My Final Settlement Due to a Misplaced Vendor Bill – What Should I Do?

I worked in one MNC company as an accountant, and I quit 4 months ago. Still, I have not received my settlement, which is being held up by the company's local management at the state level. The reason behind this is that one vendor submitted a bill for his services to the company 4 years ago to the concerned in-charge, who misplaced the bill (the same person who resigned 2 years ago). The vendor then asked for my help as he had not received payment. I informed him that I would try to assist in the matter and discovered that the bill was not recorded. I informed the vendor of this, and now the vendor is pursuing payment from the State management. The State management is now asking me to resolve this issue as I was the accountant at that time. I have informed the management that I never saw the bill nor received it from the vendor. The vendor also agrees with this statement.

Seeking Suggestions for Final Settlement

I am seeking suggestions on how to obtain my final settlement amount from the company. Should I escalate the matter to the Head Office and the Chief Managing Director?

Regards, Selvam P

Dear Selvam, Yes, it is high time for you to escalate the matter to the Head Office. You could have waited for three months and then approached the higher authorities. In your application, state the facts in chronological order. The company has provided you with the clearance. Clearance from the company shows that there are no dues with you. If any issue emerges after your exit, the current managers or authorities concerned should be competent to handle or solve the issue. It appears that someone at the higher authority does not want to solve the issue as it is considered a burden by him/her. The second interpretation of the incident is the lack of empowerment. Why are the senior authorities wary of solving the problem with their summary power?

General comments

Four months after the exit of the employee, the Full and Final (FnF) settlement is not cleared, and this happens in an MNC! I have often mentioned in this forum that the gloss of an MNC is always spurious. If the vendor submitted the bill four years ago and it was misplaced, why was the vendor not asked to provide the duplicate bill? Why has this case lingered for such a long time? Persons working in these very MNCs have a penchant to deride Indian companies as "lala companies," yet their work practices are no different!

Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar

I find it very strange that a state-level management would withhold the F&F of an accountant because a 4-year-old bill of a vendor was not paid. The logical process would be to ask the vendor for the bill copy, book the same, and pay the vendor. That has to be done by the existing accountant and not the one who is no longer working with the company. I cannot accept that any person in the management would be stupid enough to withhold someone's settlement for that reason.

So what is the actual issue here? There must be some other problem or incident that you have not informed us about. When you followed up, what was the reason given?