Ingenious Britain launches campaign to end late payment for small businesses

LONDON - June 11, 2013 - PRLog -- Ingenious Britain, one of the UK’s most prominent small business campaigns and advice organisations, has launched a campaign to raise the profile of the problems faced by small businesses from late payment by larger clients.

Research by the BACS Payment Schemes shows that Britain’s five million small businesses are waiting, on average, more than eight working weeks to be paid by larger corporates, have outstanding invoices totaling £30.2 billion and, on average, are waiting for £31,000 in overdue payments.

"Not only is this preventing the small business sector from growing," explains Ingenious Britain managing director Mark Moore,  "but is also is a reflection of the way many larger organisations are holding SMEs to ransom."

There may be recourse in legislation for SMEs against extreme late payers through interest on invoices, but many small businesses are reluctant to jeopardise working relationships by so doing. Most attempts to ensure payments to SMEs are made on time, including the voluntary Prompt Payment Code, appear to have been less than successful and many SMEs continue to struggle to achieve a fluid cash flow. It is now essential that something is done.

Ingenious Britain is hoping that the collective voice of SMEs may lead to stricter action being taken to ensure small businesses are paid on time. The organisation has set up an online petition which can be accessed at https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/department-for-bus....

For further information:

Howard Robinson
Head of Communications, Ingenious Britain
T: 0845 2996424
M: 07008 027053
www.ingeniousbritain.biz

About Ingenious Britain  

In 2011 Ingenious Britain set out to be the voice of the UK’s five million small businesses. As you know, these are the companies responsible for half of the UK’s GDP and 99% of private sector employment. We believed – and still do – that if we could help SMEs increase their sales by just £30,000 or add one employee, we could make a massive difference. In fact, this would add around £3 billion to the UK economy and create one million new jobs.

So we launched a campaign focused on the needs of SMEs, using insight and experience to provide advice and support to encourage growth in a tough economic climate. In just a year, 25,000 SMEs have signed up to receive our content and more than 600,000 small businesses have been exposed to Ingenious Britain through our combined platform in print (through the Ingenious Britain magazine which is distributed with the Sunday Telegraph), online through our web portal, through television advertising, events and an extensive programme of social media activities.