Late Payment Compensation in Suffolk

You could be sitting on a goldmine!

If your company is based in Suffolk and your business customers ever paid you late then we can help you be paid on the goldmine hidden within your accounting records. You are welcome to call us during business hours on 0330 053 9263 to discuss your potential claim in total confidence. We have local representatives and we have clients throughout Suffolk from Newmarket to Nacton and from Sudbury to Southwold.

Important legislation was introduced almost a decade ago to combat the late payment of debt. The United Kingdom was one of the first countries in the European Union to implement late payment legislation to help promote a culture of prompt payment. There has been a statutory right to interest for late payment for small firms owed money by large firms or the public sector since 1 November 1998, when the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 came into force.

The Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 had two purposes. Firstly, to provide compensation to creditors for the late payment of debts. Secondly, to discourage late payment of invoices.

In brief, for invoices that are not paid on time, the act enables you to claim interest and compensation even if you had no such provision was in your contract.

The legislation provided for interest to be a statutory right, claimed at 8% over the Bank of England base rate and also for three tiers of compensation. £40.00 compensation can be claimed for debts under £1000.00, £70.00 for debts under 10,000 and £100.00 for debts over £10,000. There is no minimum debt value. If you invoiced your client for just £2 but they paid you late even by a day then you are still entitled to £40 compensation. It may sound too good to be true, but it absolutely the truth! Check for yourself if you want to.

Each transaction can be viewed as a individual debt so effectively the compensation can be calculated and applied to every individual invoice. If you have invoiced a customer many times over the last six years then the compensation due could be considerable, potentially amounting to thousands of pounds for many customers. If you add up all the customers you have had over the last six years, you can start to imagine the size of the goldmine hidden in your ledgers!

Interest and compensation can be claimed even if the principal debt has been paid. One can retrospectively go back up to six years to claim interest and compensation on invoices that were paid late. They are a statutory right and no contract can block access to them, although a contract could go conceivably go beyond them.

In fact a forward-thinking business owner would make sure they invoiced each separate item on a separate invoice rather than issuing a single invoice for multiple items. By doing so they would make it clearer that each item was a separate transaction and due its separate compensation should any invoice be paid late.

It is however limited to the commercial supply of goods and services to businesses and does not apply to goods or services provided to consumers.

The statutory right to claim interest, compensation and the other entitlements are not compulsory and it is for the supplier to decide whether or not to use rights made available. Part of maintaining any successful business is good cashflow management and the late payment legislation can help you with your credit management.

The compensation provisions are still rarely used by suppliers. Sometimes they do not want to damage the relationship with their existing customers. More often, late payment compensation is only claimed by those in the know once the relationship has soured or gone stale. CPA would be happy to help businesses collect the compensation to which they are entitled. This is particularly useful in respect of former customers with whom you are no longer trading. It is crucial to act now before some of them could go out of business – then it could be too late….

How CPA can help!

Also please bear in mind that the statute of limitations blocks claiming on invoices over six years old. So if you delay, those claims respecting six year old invoices will be lost and never be recoverable. This would be a tragedy, so PLEASE ACT NOW. Call us on 0330 053 9263. The main part of the service is on a no win, no fee basis!

The Credit Protection Association provides Business Owners and Credit Managers in Suffolk with an online credit control service that provides all the services needed, all under the one roof, including customer credit information, debt recovery and credit protection services. With extensive experience in credit management, we can provide you with expert assistance and the right solution, regardless of your business size.

The Credit Protection Association can quickly and easily produce a report for you detailing your potential claims against current and former clients that you have traded with over the last six years.

CPA can then take assignment of these debts and oversee the complicated and laborious task of producing your claims and collecting the compensation. We will take on all the costs of pursuing the debts plus any necessary legal expenses. You can just sit back and watch the money flow in.

Whether you have cash flow difficulties and are facing insolvency , or are considering retirement and closing up, or if you are just want to realise what you are due and take a stand against late payment, then we can help.

You will have complete control over which claims we pursue and we will only pursue claims against the debtors you select on our report.

See our blog on Late Payment Compensation

The only thing that could cost you is DELAY in not acting IMMEDIATELY. Please call us on 0330 053 9263 to have a confidential no-obligation discussion on the Late Payment Compensation you are due. Alternatively, either email us or use our contact form.