Late Payments -trends and best practices webinar report

In this exceptionally well attended webinar Susan Toon, Head of Operations of CICM's corporate partner Novuna Business Cash Flow, gave data-led insights into late payment trends affecting UK SMEs, alongside practical strategies to strengthen cash flow and support business growth. Susan talked through the results of Novuna's recent survey of 1,000 SME decision makers to obtain their views on cash flow and how it impacted their business. CICM East of England branch committee member Andy Moylan CEO of EFCIS, moderated the event

Not surprisingly the vast majority had encountered cash flow difficulties and of those 36% said customer late payment was the most common reason. Susan gave the average contractual payment terms and the average actual number of days overdue. A significant proportion of SMEs were not actually following up on overdue payments and Susan shared the reasons for this, as well as the average amount a SME loses each year to overdue invoices – and the number of SMEs closing annually as a result.

The slowest paying industries were identified, with an interesting comparison between the average days overdue in those industries and the average days overdue of Novuna's clients.

Susan outlined recommended steps to reduce late payments, and shared a case study of a client whose suppliers needed to be paid before their customers could pay them. The Novuna solution and its benefits were detailed.

The presentation stimulated many questions from the participants which were put, and moderated, by Andy. They included the most surprising trend found from the survey, can’t pays against won’t pays, the point at which a business should worry about late payments, different treatment of new and long standing customers, the threat and use of interest charges, extended payment terms, invoice factoring, the benefits of obtaining a cash flow statement when dealing with a requested payment plan, and the use of the sales forecast in a due diligence check.

CICM East of England Branch would like to thank Susan Toon of Novuna Business Cash Flow for this revealing and insightful webinar.

If you missed the event it was recorded and can be seen on the CICM website at:

https://www.cicm.com/resource/late-payments-trends-and-best-practices.html

and copies of Susan's presentation can be obtained from [email protected]