A WORD FROM...

Cashflow is critical to smaller businesses and too many of them are being needlessly hit by poor payment practices from larger companies and public bodies. It is estimated that around 50,000 small businesses are forced to close each year due to late payment of invoices for goods or services.

In response to calls from FSB, the Government created a Small Business Commissioner, set up a new the ‘Duty To Report’ for large firms, created new rules for large suppliers to the public sector after Carillion, and took over and strengthened a voluntary Prompt Payment Code (PPC) code of practice. But more now needs to be done, with existing rules better enforced and a tightening of audit rules.

FSB’s latest quarterly Small Business Index, published in January 2023, finds that 56 per cent of small businesses had experienced late payments in quarter four of 2022 – a mammoth 30 per cent of small businesses reported that late payments