22-11-2007
FSB highlights financial squeezing of SMEs
News by Adfero for Simply Business - independent providers of business insurance, business finance, landlord insurance, buy-to-let mortgages & commercial mortgages.
Britain's Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has highlighted details of the financial squeeze experienced by many small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The FSB believes that it is often the case that larger organisations take longer than 30 days to settle payments with SMEs, while at the same time requiring swift payment from these smaller firms in the settling of their outstanding invoices.
Indeed, data released by the organisation shows that, on average, larger organisations take approximately 46 days to settle.
"The average payment performance for invoices has flat-lined at about 46 days over the last few years and it's not getting any better," said Matthew Knowles, a representative for the FSB. "Frankly we don't think that's good enough; we think that anything over 30 days is really unacceptable," he added.
However, the FSB has highlighted a number of other organisations that delay payment beyond the criticised 46-day period. On average, UK Coal settles invoices after a period of 61 days, while the Aga Foodservice Group takes a total of 81 days.
