Late payments impacting liquidity for 80 per cent of Spanish businesses

A recent Europe-wide business survey suggests late payments are putting additional pressure on Spanish businesses, with 80 per cent claiming late payments are severely impacting liquidity.

The problem appears to be universal across Europe, with 55 per cent of businesses reporting late payments resulting in loss of income, 63 per cent claiming additional pressures on liquidity, and 50 per cent citing late payments as having a direct impact on company growth. However, the situation appears to be particularly acute in Spain, where 69 per cent of businesses claim late payments have resulted in a direct loss of income, with average bad-debt losses of 2.9 per cent. And while payment delays in the private sector appear to be better in Spain than in Europe as a whole, public sector businesses, it would appear, are delaying payments by up to 79 days.

Ricardo García-Nieto Conde, partner at Russell Bedford Barcelona member firm ASEPYME / GNL Auditores, attributes this to the wider problems afflicting Spain's public sector, and he does not expect any improvement to the situation in the short term. "It is hard to overestimate the impact current austerity policies have had on those businesses reliant on the public sector. There comes a point at which businesses have to evaluate the impact of public-sector clients on their on-going cash-flow situation, and their longer-term viability. There are signs of improvement, however. At PIMEC (Catalonia’s leading SME organisation) we have been lobbying for new legislation to ensure penalties for late payment are enforced through the appropriate channels. We are hopeful that this may be adopted by the end of this year.”

About Russell Bedford International

Established in 1983, Russell Bedford International is a global network of independent firms of accountants, auditors, tax advisers and business consultants. Ranked amongst the world’s leading accounting and audit networks, Russell Bedford is represented by some 460 partners, 5000 staff and 280 offices in more than 90 countries in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific. Russell Bedford International is a member of the IFAC Forum of Firms and a member of EGIAN, the European Group of International Accounting Networks and Associations.

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This release was published on openPR.