The UK’s small businesses are seeing the highest rate of late payments since records began being taken in 2007.
Payment company Bacs has revealed that small businesses have a total debt of £33.6bn due to late payments, which is up 10% over the last year.
Over 800,000 companies, approximately half of the UK’s small businesses, are in the process of chasing outstanding debts, which average £39,000 per business. Some companies have to wait over 60 days for payments.
The worst payers were the large companies, who are responsible for almost half of payments outstanding to small businesses.
Governments and not-for-profit organisations are the most efficient payers, with only 9% of small businesses awaiting payments from companies within these sectors.
At a time when planning for the future and ensuring a solid business plan for the upcoming years is more crucial than ever, small businesses having to wait longer for payments will continue to severely hinder growth and limit opportunities to employ more staff.
Invoice finance solutions
Did you know that there are funding options out there specifically designed to help businesses cater for late payments?
Invoice finance solutions, such as invoice factoring and invoice discounting, work to allow you to free up large amounts of cash for unpaid invoices, within 24 hours of them being issued.
If you want to find out more about our funding options, why not give our expert staff a call today.