This is a daily concern of business leaders, which the economic and geopolitical context will not help. “Topic number one (companies), it’s the late payment, “said Pierre Pelouzet, the mediator of companies, facing the readers of Parisian-Today in France last September. The latest barometer published by the Arc firm will not prove him wrong.
While the economy is currently showing resilience, the business law firm wanted to take the pulse of businesses at a time of inflation and the approach of the end of “whatever cost “. The results of the study he conducted with Ifop among 202 companies with more than 50 employees in May and June show that 72% of them plan to extend payment terms to their suppliers in the coming months. month. For more than a quarter of companies, customer payment terms have already increased over the past six months, by an average of 19.9 days from SMEs.
The business ombudsman can also help
An inventory that does not surprise Denis Le Bossé, founding president of Arc: “After the economic euphoria of the fall, there was a first deterioration with the rise in the price of raw materials. To avoid the shortage, companies have reconstituted stocks by altering their cash flow, ”says the expert. “Rather than postponing the maturities of the PGE (loan guaranteed by the State), which would have the effect of degrading their Banque de France rating, they tend to lengthen the payment periods”. 75% of the companies questioned fear that the latter will become “an adjustment variable in order to alleviate cash flow problems”. A pessimism accentuated by the fact that 21% anticipate a decline in their activity.
According to the latest official report from the Observatory of payment terms, delays reached an average of 12.4 days in the 4th quarter of 2021, one day more than in 2019. While less than one in two large companies respects the legal period of 60 days, Denis Le Bossé recalls the importance of materializing any transaction “by signing a contract, a purchase order, an estimate or even by simple exchange of email”, duly accepted and validated . “If it’s a market, it’s better to provide indexation clauses for the price of raw materials, or late delivery,” adds the recovery specialist.
In the event of difficulties, the business mediator can also provide assistance via the site mediateur-des-entreprises.fr. A free public service, and still too little known, as Pierre Pelouzet recalled in the fall.