Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
Increasing late payments and spiralling running costs are taking their toll on small construction firms, with confidence amongst the sector falling considerably in Q2 2023, from 27.4 to -31.8, according to FSB’s latest Small Business Index. FSB research found that more than a third of small construction firms (39%) experienced an increase in late payments…
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Small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) are currently owed an average of £27,214 in late payments1 according to new research from Intuit QuickBooks, as SMBs estimate one in six invoices (17%) with customers or suppliers are overdue. The research found that the problem is growing – more than half (52%) of SMBs agree they have been more affected…
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Four in ten (38%) small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) are now taking over 90 days to pay their contract staff, according to new research from Sonovate. More than two in five (43%) of SMEs now struggle to pay their contract workers on time as a result of cash flow problems within their businesses. In contrast,…
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Latest research by the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) has found that rules designed to force large companies to reveal how long they take to pay suppliers have failed to improve payment practices. The duty to report legislation, introduced in 2017, has found that the average time it takes a large business to…
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Construction companies are going bankrupt at the highest rate in a decade as inflation, a drop in housebuilding and delays to major government infrastructure projects bite according to analysed data of Insolvency Service statistics by the Financial Times (FT). The data shows that 4,280 operators entered insolvency in the year to June, a 16.5 per…
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New research by UHY Hacker Young has shown that the number of ‘dawn raids’ undertaken by HMRC has increased 36% in the past year, from 458 in 2021/22 to 623 in 2022/23 HMRC ‘dawn raids’ are unannounced searches used to gather evidence for possible prosecution for tax fraud or for furlough fraud (HMRC is responsible…
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The Bank of England has warned that rising interest rates are putting British companies at higher risk of corporate defaults, with the proportion of non-financial companies experiencing debt-servicing stress expected to hit 50% by the end of the year, up from 45% in 2022. The proportion rose to 70% for medium-sized companies, meaning corporate debt…
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Businesses in Scotland had 131,396 fewer unpaid invoices on their books in July 2023 than July 2022, according to new research from R3, the UK’s insolvency and restructuring trade body. R3’s analysis of data provided by Creditsafe shows that overdue invoice numbers in Scotland have fallen from 552,897 in July 2022 to 421,501 in July…
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Thousands of companies are running out of time as the burden of rising interest rates, unmanageable debt, subdued consumer confidence, higher material and labour costs, and wider economic uncertainty combine to put considerable pressure on businesses across the country, according to the latest Begbies Traynor Red Flag Alert. The latest data is sourced from a…
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Three in five businesses (61%) say they are currently involved in a tax dispute with HMRC which has lasted more than one year, according to a new survey from accountancy and business advisory firm BDO. The new figures, which come from a BDO survey of more than 500 mid-sized businesses, underline the difficulty that many…
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An improvement in jobs and sales growth across UK small businesses in June has been largely offset by increasing late payments and a slowdown in wages growth, according to the latest data from global small business platform Xero. The company Small Business Index, based on anonymised and aggregated data from hundreds of thousands of small…
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New research by Aldermore has found that £1.9 billion lost in income small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as a result of supply chain delays. 3.3 million (60% or three in five) small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have experienced supply chain delays in the last year, losing an average of £625,000 in income each as a…
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UK freelancers and small business owners continue to be struggle by the problem of late payment, according to new research by cloud accounting software company FreeAgent. Analysis of invoices sent by FreeAgent’s small business customers between June 2022 and June 2023 has revealed just under half (43%) of invoices sent over the past 12 months…
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