29th November 2017.

Attention to All Readers

The Late Payment Culture

Damage limitation for small and medium businesses

 

There appeared on 18th November in the Telegraph an interesting article written by the Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Credit Management.

 

Some very important highlights were stated, i.e.

 

  • “Time is money. Late payments are reportedly causing 50,000 businesses to fail every year”;

 

  • “Britons have a reluctance to talk about money. There is a perception that your client will pay in due course”.

How to really break the late payment culture

James Salmon, Operations Director at The Credit Protection Association said  “The late payment culture can be broken”

“However, while business customers are still able to threaten to remove future trade from their suppliers, they are able to get away with late payment without consequences as their supplier just sees late payment as an unavoidable cost of doing business and keeping the customer”

He added “late payment legislation provides the tools to truly change the culture. Late payment legislation allows suppliers to go back six years (due to the statute of limitations) and charge compensation and interest on late payments that happened in the past”

“How will this change the culture?”

“Business customers may rely on their trading relationship with a supplier to get away with late payment, but as soon as that relationship ends, they face the prospect of being hit with 6 years worth of late payment compensation. Once that relationship ends, the supplier is fully entitled to go and ask for that retrospective compensation.

“Therefore, why risk late payment? Why operate with the risky of a large penalty looming over them?  It would be better for them to pay on time and avoid that risk”

“They may not even end the relationship themselves, the supplier might get into difficulties and realise they have this large untapped asset in late payment compensation that is available to them. Or the supplier might just look at all the late payments over the years, the hassle of chasing and decide that the business customer is worth more to them as an ex-customer than they are as a current customer”

“At present, not many suppliers are insisting on this compensation  and therefore it is not at the forefront of businesses minds. The more suppliers pursue late payment compensation, the more it becomes main stream, the more businesses will realise that the culture of late payment is not the magical free cash flow machine they thought it was and that it does come with a potential future cost.”

“Once they discover that every invoice they paid late, no matter how small, could lead to a compensation claim of at least £40, even if it was only late by a few days, then they are going to want to change their operating procedures to avoid future claims.”

With larger late paid invoices being worth £70 or £100 in compensation and with interest calculated daily at 8 percent above base then the costs of routinely paying suppliers late could be massive.

“They should quickly realise that it is better to pay their suppliers on time and instead finance their business’ cashflow through more traditional means.”

This doesn’t just mean deciding to finally raise a payment on the day it becomes due. If the payment arrives late, the penalty will still apply. No, to avoid the claim, those business customers need to make sure the payment arrives on or before the due date.  If  it arrives one day late then the full compensation is still due under the legislation.

“If payments start coming in on time, then those suppliers in turn will them have the cash to pay their suppliers and so on and so on….  The chain of late payment can be broken. The late payment culture can be stopped. We have the tools.”

“This isn’t an attack on business. Getting cash to flow faster through the economy can only boost our nations productivity.”

“Imagine a world where businesses and business owners spent more time working on productive projects and less on chasing payments!”

“Imagine a world where business owners could turn round jobs faster!”

“Imagine a world where business owners spent more time planning growth and new products and services and spent less time stressed over cash-flow”

“Breaking the late payment culture can liberate our nations small businesses and small business owners!”

How can CPA help?

If you sell on credit and have faced late paying business customers then we can help.

At the Credit Protection Association, our members benefit from our debt recovery and credit management services which give them the tools to avoid and battle late payments. Opening up the financial freedom needed to grow and prosper.

Our new Late Payment Compensation company, CPA (LPC) Recoveries Limited however can help suppliers unlock hidden potential and recover  the compensation due to their businesses.

Integrating the historic ledgers and calculating the claims is a complicated process but CPA has developed the systems to do it. We also have the experience and expertise to collect the compensation and overcome the various objections.

We are passionate about wanting to end the culture of late payment and want to work with suppliers who feel the same.

visit our late compensation page

See our full blog and FAQ on late payment compensation

 

DO NOT be afraid to ask for what is yours.

You have the Credit Protection Association at your disposal! Please do not hesitate to email the managing director of CPA, David Baber, at dsbaber@cpa.co.uk if you would like a full copy of the article in the Telegraph.

This can be sent to you either by email or through the post.

Do you have debts owed to you by your customers? Do you have old outstanding invoices that need chasing? Are you being weighed down by bad debt?

Here at CPA we are happy to help and love a challenge! Go ahead and contact us at the Credit Protection Association and we shall see our next step.

 The Credit Protection Association is a credit management company established in 1914. If you supply goods or services on credit then we can help you!

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Watch the video to find out how CPA can help you!

How to overcome 25 of the most common excuses for non-payment

Click the image to discover step by step advice on how to deal with them!

 

 

 

 

 

Discover how to improve your cashflow in 3 steps.

Click the image to find our answer to the question “How can you get paid on time?”

 

 

 

 

Read our blog – Debt collection agency

Read our Cash Flow Advice

Read about our overdue account recovery service

Read our blog – What is credit management?

Read our blog -What is a credit management company?

Read our blog -Credit Management that works!

Read our blog – How to select a debt collection agency

click to see read about our successes

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