SMEs face late payment crisis
Jan 09 2008
SMEs in the UK face chasing up overdue bills worth £18.6 billion, according to the payment organisation Bacs Payment Schemes.
The figures showed that although the percentage of businesses having to tackle late payments dropped from 59 per cent to 51 per cent, the value of money owed to them has increased by £2.6 billion.
Michael Chambers, Bacs managing director, says: 'British SMEs need to be much smarter about tackling late payments and should use a range of solutions, including automated payments, to stamp out the problem once and for all.'
The average amount owed to businesses is £30,000 and almost a third of those polled claimed that they would go bust if faced with overdue invoices of £20,000.
SMEs in the London area faced the worst payers with 65 per cent of them facing problems compared with the national average of just over half.
Meanwhile, some experts say the SMEs risk not claiming thousands of pounds they are legally entitled to, due to changes in the time limit for claiming research and development tax credits.