When it comes to late payments — there are no “altar boys”

Researchers surveyed both types of businesses — payors and payees. As one would expect, they complain about / blame each-other for late payments.

A- The 2015 Perception Study from Receivables Savvy which surveyed over 200 accounting and financial professionals.

When asked, “What is your company’s biggest credit and collections challenge?” many of those surveyed, not surprisingly, spoke of various challenges with getting paid on time. The most frequently discussed problems included:

• Getting paid in a timely manner or getting paid within the agreed upon terms.

• Actually getting paid/getting the money, vs. receiving empty promises from customers.

• Maintaining good customer relations with late paying customers.

• Having enough time to manage the collections process.

• Actually reaching customers or the right person when trying to follow up.

• Dealing with credit approvals and offering lines of credit.

• Collecting from customers that appear to be failing.

• Resolving payment disputes.

B. In a 2018 Survey from Hyland Software payors (Accounts Payables) identified the following as reasons for late payments:

• Paperwork errors, missing documents, sometimes even too much many documents to sift through.

• Too much manual data entry. Payors and payees have not synchronized computer systems for payments.

• Invoices exceptions, i.e. biller charges for items not in the Contract / Purchase Order.

• Difficult to change systems and processes in.-house, let-alone have payees change how they interface with payors. New software is not user-friendly.

• Approvers take too long, because often Biller charges too much.