New research has revealed that unpaid bills still present a major problem for many smaller businesses.
The study by Bacs, which runs the direct debit system, shows that more than half (53 per cent) of SME’s in the UK suffered delays in payment. This was an increase of eight per cent on last year’s figure.
SME’s are owed a total of around £24 billion in unpaid bills, with the average amount of outstanding payments per firm now standing at £27,000.
The research suggests that large companies are mainly to blame, with almost a third of bigger firms failing to send off payments on time.
The problem has also been aggravated by smaller firms having to spend up to half a day a week chasing outstanding invoices. This equates to 158 million hours a year in work time altogether.
Hart Shaw’s Business Recovery & Insolvency department specialise in debt collection so if this is a concern for you and you would like talk to us please contact Emma Legdon on T: 0114 251 8850 or email: emma.legdon@hartshaw.co.uk.
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