Member Article

IT consultants fastest at chasing late payments

New research into the UK’s self employed workforce has found IT consultants are the best at chasing late payments – while videographers are the worst at recouping their unpaid bills.

The research undertaken by Crunch Accounting into industry payment times, included data from more than 30,000 invoices across the country. The new payment times league table found that, on average, IT consultants took just 19 days to settle their invoices, the shortest time recorded so far in 2015.

Writers and publishers were second best at chasing late payments, taking 20 days. Writers were also the most radically improved of any sector – in 2012 they took an average of 47 days to receive invoiced payment.

On the other end of the scale, videographers are currently lagging behind when it comes to settling their late payments. In 2015 it took an average of 31 days for freelance videographers to be paid their fee, the worst result recorded, followed by graphic designers (30 days) and marketers (29 days) respectively.

On average, self-employed workers are spending 25 days chasing up each late payment, a seven day decrease since 2012.

Crunch founder and CEO, Darren Fell, said: “These statistics show just how much of a serious problem late payments are for self-employed workers. Some sectors have improved at chasing their payments, but this is largely down to advances in payment technology and more widespread use of online banking contributing to the improvement in business cash flow.

“Nevertheless freelancers and small companies still shouldn’t have to wait up to a month or more to receive their fees. Hopefully, the appointment of a government small business commissioner will provide a solution for Britain’s self-employed workers and stop small companies being bullied by their bigger customers”.

According to government estimations, small firms are owed £26bn in late payments each year. The government also announced the introduction of a small business commissioner, part of a new small business conciliation service, to address this issue during the Queen’s speech in July this year.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Crunch Accounting .