Suppliers are not paid on time by client companies. This phenomenon, which particularly affects commerce, personal services and construction companies, creates many difficulties.
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By payment deadlines we mean the time taken by a company – large retail chain, industrial company, administration, for example – to pay its suppliers. The law caps these deadlines at 60 days from the date of issue of the invoice, or “45 days end of month”, under penalty of fairly heavy fines. Today, 49% of customers or principals pay their invoices on time. Payment terms are on average 12 days, but the situation is becoming worryingly tense.
The causes are well identified: a slowdown in activity with the drop in consumption, inflation which increases the cost of products, and high interest rates. Thanks to the various measures put in place by public authorities, in particular “name and shame”, the denunciation of bad payers, the situation has improved since the Covid pandemic. But the trend is starting to rise again and it is SMEs / SMIs which are mainly paying the price, according to the Altares firm, whose regularly published indicator refers.
SMEs fragile again
Commerce and personal services are mainly affected, as are construction companies, hit hard by the real estate crisis. But, in all cases, the accumulated delay in cash receipts means less available cash, at a time when small businesses are nevertheless affirming that they want to continue to invest. The timing is not right.
If the law were strictly respected, it is estimated that the cash released would be around 10 to 15 billion euros. That is to say that 10 to 15 billion euros are currently lying dormant in the coffers of large groups, due to failure to be redistributed to suppliers. The figure is impressive but very real: every day, nearly 40 SMEs go out of business due to late payments, or one in four SME bankruptcies in France today.