Late Payment Compensation

26th October 2023 Late payments hit three year high Small businesses in the UK are facing a worsening late payment crisis, with payment times hitting a three-year high. According to Xero’s quarterly small business index, small firms are waiting an average of 29.4 days to be paid by their customers, with payments in September being made 7.7 days after the due date. The manufacturing sector has been the worst affected, with payments made 10.1 days late on average. Industry leaders are calling on the Government to take action and help […]

23rd October 2023 Hunt urged to tackle  later payers The Federation of Small Businesses is calling on the Chancellor to pressure large companies to pay smaller suppliers on time, with the body’s chairman Martin McTague describing late payments as “pernicious” for his members. He also called for an extension on the 75% discount on business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses and to end the “simple flaw” in the tax system that prevents the self-employed deducting training costs from their tax bills. Meanwhile, the British Chambers of Commerce has […]

Insolvencies predicted to rise 20th October 2023 Allianz Trade predicts in its latest report  that UK business insolvencies in the UK will reach about 30% above pre-pandemic levels by 2025, with almost 30,000 insolvencies predicted for 2024 and 2025. The rise in insolvencies is driven by the hospitality, trade, and manufacturing sectors, contributing to an estimated increase of 16% in 2023, or 3,900 additional insolvencies. In fact all sectors having largely surpassed 2019 insolvency levels, the resilience of UK businesses has been strained by  the successive shocks and challenges that […]

EU proposes tightening of Late payment regime 13 October 2023. The EU is proposing tightening up it’s late payment regime. Although the new regulations won’t apply in the UK, it is interesting for comparisons sake compared with the UK governments inaction. Key points 1) They propose replacing the current directive (which each state must legislate to apply locally – as the UK did with the The Late Payment of Commercial Debts Regulations 2013 in response to the Late Payment Directive (2011/7/EU) ) with EU regulation which applies equally across the EU. […]

New late payment measures fail to excite James Salmon, Operations Director – 12th October 2023. While I was away on leave, the government announced “new” measures to tackle the late payment culture that is holding back small businesses and the economy. These new measures are set to be part of the Prompt Payment & Cash Flow Review, that is due to be published in the near future. The “new” measures set to be announced within the review are: Extending the Reporting on Payment Practices and Performance Regulations 2017. Following consultation, […]

The Impact of Late Payments on Cash Flow 1st August 2023 Submitted by Nina Albert Around 87% of small and medium enterprises (those with annual sales of less than £5 million per year) are paid late in the UK, and other countries are faring no better. Businesses in the US, for instance, report that they are owed an average of $304,066 by late paying clients. It’s not just the amount of money that is worrisome, it is also the sheer number of invoices that are being paid late—about 50% of all those […]