Thursday 26th July, 2012

The late payment of invoices can damage the profits, growth and even survival prospects of many small businesses, especially as the country recovers from recession. With few formal procedures in-place to tackle the problem the Forum of Private Business has thrown its weight behind a new campaign which is calling for all of the UK's top 100 FTSE companies to sign the Prompt Payment Code.

As part of the wider 'Be Fair – Pay on Time' campaign initiated by MP, Debbie Abrahams, which asks all firms to pay their suppliers as quickly as possible under the agreed terms and conditions.

Phil Orford, the Forum's CEO, said: "FTSE 100 businesses are the true bastions of the UK's private sector and, by subscribing to the Code, they will be leading the way as they rightly should for others to follow. This is their chance to lead by example on what's an extremely important issue for small businesses."

As well as this new initiative aimed at helping SME’s trade successfully, the latest chairman of the Institute of Directors (IoD), Ian Dormer, has firsthand experience of running a small business, which gave him the passion to pursue joining the IoD . With an engineering background and working for three years as a journalist he then went on to take over his father’s business.

As reported in The Telegraph: Ian Dormer, the chairman of the Institute of Directors, said that he would  “draw on experience at the family business to stand up for the UK's small companies and the "disproportionate" burden they carry.

A survey carried out by the FPB and Graydon UK earlier this year found that just over half of companies cite that the late payment of trade invoices is a big problem.