Is your business owed money?

The ‘scourge of late payment’ was specifically mentioned in the government’s Spring Statement this year. There is government consultation in the pipeline, but with 20% of small businesses running into cash flow difficulties because their bills are paid late, December 2017 saw a new service launched to help.

The Small Business Commissioner (SBC) has taken on a new complaints handling role to assist small businesses by:

• supporting Britain’s 5.7 million small businesses to resolve payment disputes and tackle larger businesses’ unfair payment practices to drive culture change
• providing a new website to help small businesses with late payment issues
• receiving late payment complaints from small businesses.

There are a number of parameters about which cases the SBC can help with. If the SBC does take your complaint on, it will aim to make its recommendation within six weeks. Its decision is not legally binding, so court action and other options remain open should you require them. The new website can be found here goo.gl/qd8P24