We hate waiting. Especially when we have to wait for public transportation. And we don’t have all those nice queues like they do in the UK. That would save us here at the E-invoicing Platform a lot of frustration. Even though they do it in a more social fashion, the Britons are no strangers to waiting either. Small businesses in the United Kingdom are waiting on £35 billion in late payment. Waiting for the bus for 5 minutes pales in comparison to this amount.
An increase in nearly everything
According to Bacs, the not-for-profit, membership-based industry body owned by 16 banks and building societies in the UK, Europe and US, unpaid bills to small businesses are now at the highest level (£35.3 billion) in almost five years. The research showed that the average amount owed to small business stood at £45.000 at the end of 2011. This was “only” £39.000 the year before. The figure of the average waiting time is up as well, from 28 days in 2010 to 29.5 days in 2011.
Automate your payments!
Mike Hutchinson, Head of Bacs Marketing, believes that the increasing value of late payments is proof that automating your payments is of the utmost importance when it comes to a smooth cash flow:
- “We would always recommend that anybody running a business ensures that as many regular payments as possible are automated in order to maintain financial control. This will reduce the stress and financial cost of chasing payments for business owners.”
- “Ultimately it is an issue for businesses of all sizes to address as prompt payment is not only good for the individual businesses involved in any given transaction, but throughout the whole supply chain.”
Cláudia Wada on