Finance a vital resource as billing delays hit building industry

It warns that a single late payment can be an issue even for successful firms, which can be caught out if a major client delays a payment significantly. If that late payment coincides with a major bill coming in, such as a tax, VAT or rent payment, the consequences can be severe.

Furthermore, the construction sector has a long supply chain which includes many small and medium-sized enterprises and delayed payments could create a domino effect that impacts hundreds of small suppliers.

Slow payment of bills is a major reason why the construction sector has such a high number of insolvencies; 2,557 construction firms entered insolvency during 2016.

Conrad Ford, CEO of Funding Options, said: “What this data again underlines is that the construction sector has a persistent problem getting clients to pay early on.

“Long supply chains in industries like construction mean that the ripple effect of delays is likely to affect many other businesses further down, with SMEs hit the hardest. In an industry with high overheads in terms of materials and labour costs, this can be difficult to deal with.

“These figures show that it’s more important than ever that the construction sector fully understand the options available to them to free up the funds they require and to minimise the impact of late payment and other poor payment practices.”

Choices available to manage cash flow range from invoice finance and asset finance to crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending.

Ford added: “Unfortunately, small businesses leaders often don’t know which sort of finance is the best fit for a particular need, or who is out there to provide it.”

Funding Options as a UK online marketplace for business finance, raising tens of millions of pounds for SME finance each year.

It works with dozens of lenders across the alternative business funding spectrum, from challenger banks to invoice finance, hire purchase, leasing, peer-to-peer lending and property funding.

Funding Options has been designated by HM Treasury and the British Business Bank for the bank referral scheme, to help UK SMEs find alternative finance when they are unsuccessful with the major banks.

Average wait in days for invoice payment in construction sector

Source: Funding Options