Remote Working and the Rise of Late Payment: How to Protect Your Business

Since the pandemic, remote and hybrid working have become the new normal. While many businesses have embraced the flexibility, the shift has also created unexpected challenges — especially when it comes to getting paid on time.

Late payment has always been a problem for UK businesses, but remote working has made it even harder to keep cash flowing smoothly. Here’s why:

Why Remote Working Fuels Late Payments

1. ☎️Harder to communicate with decision-makers
In the past, you could pick up the phone or walk into an office to chase a payment. Now, with staff working from home, tracking down the right person can be difficult. Emails go unanswered, voicemails get ignored, and finance teams can be harder to reach.

2. ⛔Delays in authorising payments
Many companies still rely on paper-based processes or multiple layers of sign-off. When managers aren’t in the same office, invoices can sit waiting in a digital pile. Out of sight often means out of mind.

3. 🙈🙉🙊Reduced collaboration inside organisations
Finance, procurement, and operations teams used to work side by side. Remote working makes it harder to share information quickly, which can delay invoice approvals or raise unnecessary disputes.

4. ⚙️Complex workflows and tech gaps
If a business doesn’t have the right payment software, tasks can easily get lost in inboxes. Some firms even resort to printing and posting documents between home addresses — hardly efficient in 2025.

5. 🤧🏖️Staff turnover and absenteeism
Remote working has increased job-hopping and flexible contracts. Suppliers often find themselves chasing a payment with someone who’s already left the business, while nobody else has taken ownership of the account.

6. ☠️🔎Extra compliance and fraud checks
Reliance on email means buyers are more cautious about fraud. Delays caused by extra “verification checks” are now a common excuse for late payments.

7. 🏠And could part of the problem be closer to home?
It’s easy to blame your customers, but remote and hybrid working can also cause issues within your own organization. If your finance or credit control teams are working from home without the right tools, delays can creep in. Maybe they don’t have easy access to key documents, or perhaps certain follow-ups have to wait until someone is next on site. Without proper systems in place, chasing overdue payments becomes slower and less effective — leaving your business exposed.

How to Protect Your Business

While you can’t control how your customers operate, you can reduce the risk of late payments by tightening your own processes:

• Get everything documented – use digital contracts with e-signatures and keep proof of delivery.
• Send invoices promptly – ideally by email in PDF format with all purchase order numbers included.
• Use clear credit policies – ensure you’ve carried out credit checks and have limits in place.
• Automate reminders – don’t let overdue accounts drift.
• Escalate quickly – if payment isn’t made, involve CPA’s Overdue Account Recovery service. Our unique process gets over 80% of debts paid directly to you, while maintaining goodwill with your customer.

How CPA Can Help

At CPA, we’ve been helping businesses get paid since 1914. We know how disruptive late payment is — and how remote working has made the problem worse. That’s why our membership includes:

• CreditCare reports and monitoring – to help you assess and track your customers. Our reports take into account payment data to help you assess who are the good payers and who need more prompting.
• Overdue Account Recovery service – resolving most late payments without damaging relationships. Involving a third party, can be just what is needed to break through the log jam and get the payment process moving again.
• Collections department – to handle the minority of stubborn debts.

Don’t let remote working become another excuse for your customers to delay payment. Put processes in place, and let CPA give you the support you need to keep cash flowing.

Call Peter Uwins on 020 8846 0000 or email nsm@cpa.co.uk