Two out of three companies pay their bills late – ITRnews.com

In France, the trade credit weighs over 635 billion euros … Or five times the total amount of short-term loans granted by financial institutions (120 billion euros). That’s almost a third of the state GDP. These figures provide by themselves the extent of the financial issue, and without strategic doubt, the issue of payment delays. Sometimes opportunity factor, when expressly agreed, trade credit can be a major risk factor for the supplier, when incurred.

If the LME since 2008 law, the terms of payment are capped 60 days net, companies are likely to see overtaking. Altares The analysis of aging balances of companies representing more than 211 million invoices confirm. Nearly two out of three (62%) pay their suppliers late. This is 12.2 days on average in 2014 and tends to increase in 2015 now exceeding 13 days.

The payment behavior also mask significant disparities companies profiles. Thus, the ETI and Large firms are less respectful of invoice dates as small businesses. And the finding is not specific to France. Nine ETI and Large Enterprises in ten pay their bills after the deadline in France versus eight in ten in Europe. Even in Germany, which remains generally virtuous, ETI-GE are less respectful of deadlines; more than four in ten pay overdue suppliers. However, late payments transfer the client’s risk to the provider. Altares recalls that late payments are causing a quarter of failures.

The issue of payment delays is significant, both in terms of cash for SMEs but also in terms of financial risk. Therefore Altares joins the inter mediation to create the indicator announced today to measure the amount of settlement delays more than 120 major clients companies in France. The figure is very close to 4 billion euros at end-April, up slightly from a peak of more than 4.163 billion euros in January 2015. He would miss 10 to 13 billion euros annually in cash small and medium enterprises because of these late payments. Monitoring this indicator will measure each quarter progress in improving invoice processing rules, explains Thierry Million, Director of Altares studies.

In 2010, one hundred cases had been treated recalls Pierre Pelouzet, the National Ombudsman of inter-company relationships just presented the activity report of the Inter-company mediation. In 2014, national and regional mediators delegates spoke on almost 1 000 cases (Inter-company Mediation and Procurement). These are individual and collective mediations, sometimes involving entire industrial sectors, often with many jobs at stake. Mediations success rate currently stands at over 75%, demonstrating the suitability of the device life and company time. Setting up 5 years ago, the Inter-companies Mediation is now leading the fight against late payments, which remain by far his first concern. Late payments are the cause of a quarter of bankruptcies recorded in France …