Why Can’t Big Clients Pay on Time?
Hear the lament of the small business owner about clients paying on time:
“That ethereal number you’re punching into the company accounting system is actual money to a real person, and no excuse at all — ‘our creditors department is really busy’, ‘the MD is out of town — is going to change the fact that without that payment you’re leaving some brave entrepreneur well up the creek. For that entrepreneur, being up the creek means phoning your bank manager and grovelling, emptying the last of your credit cards, or selling your new computer to pay your only staff member. I’m not kidding, I’ve seen it and it’s the real deal. At my small publishing company, we’ve found that the bigger the client, the longer they take to pay.”
The above quote comes from Arthur Attwell, a South African (that’s why some of the terminology sounds a little foreign — it is foreign to those of us here in the States).
This is such a common theme for small businesses everywhere. Some clients, especially big clients, just don’t pay quickly.
But there’s a better solution than selling your new computer in order to pay your staff. Factoring can help you accelerate your cash flow, and do it quickly. When cash is almost within your grasp, it makes little sense to sell a computer or do something you’ll regret five minutes after you do it.
