Companies in transport and logistics are waiting longer and longer to pay invoices. In the second quarter of 2018, invoices in the sector were generally paid after 45 days.
This makes the transport and logistics sector the slowest payer in the Dutch business world, according to the Graydon Payment Behaviour Barometer. In the second quarter of 2017, the sector was already lagging behind in terms of payment behaviour (44 days). At that time, IT & Communications was the sector that
slowest to settle invoices.
Large companies pay SMEs less quickly
In the first half of 2018, companies in the Netherlands paid their invoices
on average after 39.9 days. That is half a day faster than a year ago. In contrast, invoices from
smaller companies to large companies are being paid more and more slowly.
According to Graydon, this is due to the introduction of the law on maximum payment terms, which came into force in mid-2017. As a result, large
companies to settle invoices from SMEs within sixty days.
Legal payment term
However, the tightening of the legislation has not resulted in large companies paying any faster. “On the contrary, it appears that large companies
have started using the maximum statutory payment term as a guideline to make their payment behaviour towards smaller companies
,” says Maurice van Weerdenburg of Graydon.
“The law was actually introduced
as an incentive to ensure that SMEs have access to cash more quickly and are therefore better
able to make investments or create jobs. Many large companies have actually
actually brought them more into line with the statutory 60-day limit.”
Read the full Graydon Barometer of Payment Behaviour here.
