Get paid! A guide for owners and managers of small businesses

As part of the government’s ‘Get Paid’ campaign, this ‘quick guide’ to avoiding or managing late payment, summarises the tips outlined in ACCA's 2012 report by Boden and Paul.

As of November 2011, Britain’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were owed £33.6 billion in overdue payments and had to wait, on average, for about two months to get paid by other businesses. Half of all SMEs struggle with overdue payments and many cannot survive the cashflow problems that they create. 

As part of the government’s ‘Get Paid On Time Day’ series of publications, ACCA, Experian, the Forum of Private Business, and the Institute of Credit Management (ICM), have prepared a quick guide for owners and managers of small businesses trying to avoid or manage late payment. 

These tips summarise a series of interviews carried out by Professor Rebecca Boden and Dr Salima Paul and sponsored by ACCA. As such they come straight from the horse’s mouth: from businesses big and small, suppliers and customers, business owners and managers as well as professional credit managers.