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04 Aug 2008
At the weekend, I learned that BERR has completely withdrawn funding support for the website, "payontime.co.uk", run by the Better Payment Practice Group- a lobby group that encourages companies to pay their bills on time. Not great timing on behalf of the government, especially when there is so much in the press about SMEs suffering cash flow difficulties due to slow trade payments from big company clients. Perhaps BERR is fed up with flogging a dead horse on this issue. Far from improving, trade payments are getting worse and worse.
Only last week, Matalan, the fashion retailer, announced that it will be imposing a 2% "contribution" discount on all supplier invoices in order to fund future investment in its business- the argument being that suppliers will be able to grow on the back of Matalan's future growth.Thanks, but if I was a supplier, I might have chosen to invest directly in my own business first - given the choice!
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Many thanks for picking up on the exclusive story about the pulled funding for payontime.co.uk which we broke on my website BusinessZone.co.uk.
Late payment is an issue which the government needs to urgently address. Only this week, research from the Forum of Private Business showed that the vast majority of small businesses are struggling to get big customers to pay up on time with most believing it is having a serious impact on their business. Most entrepreneurs are loathed to use their legal right to impose interest on tardy payers for fear of losing their business so non-legislative methods is the way to go - and soon.
Posted by: Dan Martin, 28 Aug 2008 | 17:45