Your case report is accepted on a Tuesday. By Thursday two things have gone wrong that nobody warned you about.
Your hospital's finance office has bounced the invoice: it names you personally and carries no field for the institution's tax number. And the transfer you sent landed forty dollars short, because a bank you never chose, sitting between yours and the publisher's, took a cut on the way.
Neither problem is about your science. Both were answerable by one email sent weeks earlier — while you could still submit somewhere else.
Before you arrange payment, establish whether you owe anything at all
Submission and peer review are free here, and an invoice is issued only once a manuscript is formally accepted. If it is rejected, nothing is owed. You are asking your finance office how it would pay, not for money now.
Check whether the charge applies at all: three waiver routes are set out on Fee Waivers & Discounts, and a request belongs at or before submission. Difficulty moving money out of your country is not itself one of those routes; that is logistics, and logistics is what follows.
An invoice has to satisfy your finance office, not you — so find out what it must carry
An invoice you are happy with and one your institution can pay are different documents. Accounts payable systems commonly require:
- The institution as the bill-to party, with its registered address
- A field for the institution's tax identifier (GST, VAT, TIN, PAN or local equivalent)
- A purchase-order number, raised before the invoice exists
- Article title, DOI where available, and a description of the service
- A proforma or a tax invoice — some offices need both
Our editorial office can arrange institutional or funder billing and supply reimbursement documentation on request.
OUR, SHA and BEN decide who absorbs the bank charges, and SHA is why invoices arrive short
Every international bank transfer carries a charge code saying who pays the banks' fees. Under OUR the sender pays every charge, including any taken en route, so the full amount arrives. Under SHA and BEN those fees come out of the money in transit, so less arrives than you sent.
SHA is a common default at the counter, and a standard explanation for a short payment. The deduction is not taken by the journal and does not show on your debit advice.
A short payment can hold your article in production, and fixing it costs a second transfer
An unsettled invoice on a publisher's ledger can hold an accepted article in production until it is cleared, and clearing it usually means a second transfer with its own fees. Publishers differ — some absorb a shortfall, some invoice the difference, some wait — which is why it is question six below.
Your own bank may want a purpose code and a declaration before it releases the money
Many countries regulate outbound payments, and where they do, your bank has to satisfy that regulation. Where a purpose code is required, it classifies what the payment is for, drawn from a list your own central bank or regulator publishes. A foreign-remittance declaration — where one applies, the name differs by country — is a statement you or your institution signs about the payment's purpose and, in some countries, its tax treatment.
These are questions for your bank and finance office, not for a publisher; we are not tax advisers. Ask the journal early for a clean invoice and full remittance instructions.
Ask your finance office five things before you ask the journal anything
Part of the delay sits on your own side, and it is cheaper to find out first.
- Will you pay a foreign publisher directly, or do I pay and claim reimbursement?
- Do you need a purchase order before the invoice, and how long does that take?
- Must the supplier be registered on your vendor system, and what does that require?
- Which fields must the invoice carry — tax identifier, bill-to address, cost centre, PO number?
- Who signs the remittance forms, and how long is the cycle from invoice to payment?
The last answer matters most. If your institution's cycle is longer than the journal's window, you want to know before acceptance.
The twelve-question enquiry to send any journal's accounts desk, including ours
Send it before you submit, to the address a journal gives for invoicing. Copy the first column; the other two are for you.
| Ask | Why it matters | A satisfactory written answer |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Who issues the invoice, and can it be addressed to my institution rather than to me personally? | An invoice naming an individual may be unreimbursable | Names the entity; confirms the institution can be billed |
| 2. Can it carry my institution's tax identifier field (GST, VAT, TIN, PAN or local equivalent) and a purchase-order number? | A missing field can get it rejected | Yes, and asks for both beforehand |
| 3. What currency is the invoice denominated in, and is the amount fixed in that currency? | A floating amount cannot be budgeted | One currency, figure fixed |
| 4. Which payment methods do you accept, and does each carry a different processing charge? | Routes differ in cost and speed | Methods listed, with any charge |
| 5. For a bank transfer, which charge code do you require — OUR, SHA or BEN? | Decides whether the invoice arrives in full | Names a code, before you pay |
| 6. If an intermediary bank deducts a fee and the received amount is short, do you write off the shortfall, invoice the difference, or hold the article? | Decides whether a bank you never chose can delay you | Says which of the three happens |
| 7. What is your full remittance instruction set, and will you send it on letterhead? | Your bank needs a document | Instructions attached on letterhead |
| 8. What documentation do you provide for reimbursement, and how long after payment? | No receipt, no claim | Names the document and a timeframe |
| 9. If my institution needs a supplier registration completed before it can pay, will your office complete it? | Onboarding stalls if nobody fills in forms | Yes, naming who handles it |
| 10. What is the payment deadline after acceptance, and what happens to the article if payment is delayed while my institution processes it? | Institutional cycles outrun publisher windows | The window, and how to extend it |
| 11. Under what circumstances is the charge refundable, and how long does a refund take? | Overpayments and withdrawals arise | A written policy and a timeframe |
| 12. Who do I email about the invoice, and is that a different address from the editorial office? | Finance queries sent to editors can go unanswered | A specific billing address |
Our answer to question 11 is the Refund Policy. We show the applicable charge at submission or on request rather than as one published number, because it varies by journal and article type.
What the answers tell you about a journal — and what a non-answer tells you
The test is not whether a journal prints a fee on a public page; some legitimate publishers, this one included, quote at submission or on request. The test is whether you get clear written answers, from an identifiable office, before you commit a manuscript.
Verify a payment instruction naming a personal account, or one that changes between emails, through the journal's own site. None of this touches editorial evaluation: the charge falls due only after formal acceptance, and payment and waiver status are handled administratively, separately from the editorial decision.
A plain-English glossary of the terms on the remittance form
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| OUR | Charge code: sender pays every bank fee |
| SHA | Charge code: sender pays their own bank only |
| BEN | Charge code: recipient bears all fees |
| Correspondent bank | A bank holding an account for another, so payments cross borders |
| Intermediary bank | A bank between sender and recipient that may take a fee |
| Short payment | An amount arriving short of the invoiced sum |
| Purpose code | A regulator's classification of what a payment is for |
| Foreign-remittance declaration | A signed statement about an outbound payment, required in some countries, covering its purpose and sometimes its tax treatment |
| Tax identifier field | The invoice line carrying a registered tax number |
| Proforma invoice | A preliminary bill issued before payment, so a finance office can raise a purchase order; not a tax document and not a receipt |
| Tax invoice | The formal record of a charge, used for reimbursement |
| Vendor onboarding | Registering a supplier on an institution's payment system |
Our terms sit on Article Processing Charges, Fee Waivers & Discounts and the Refund Policy. See also what your APC pays for, what a corresponding author is responsible for and how long publication takes, which runs alongside the finance cycle.