From faster payments to ‘burden hunters’ that will hunt down and cut red tape, the government has announced a set of initiatives to make life easier for SMEs. Given it was actually quite good news the government’s announcement of measures to help small businesses flew surprisingly under the radar this week. Its biggest early Christmas … Read more
Imagine you didn’t get paid for a month or two for your work. Big businesses have used this tactic to keep cash in the bank – but how long do our corporates take to pay? Rebecca Stevenson investigates. This post was originally published 17 February 2018 In New Zealand, they account for 97% of businesses. … Read more
Following a campaign on The Spinoff about dragged out payments to small business, a members’ bill has been lodged to name and shame corporate late-payers. We did it! Just this week Labour MP Deborah Russell announced she was putting a members’ bill in the biscuit tin of democracy. The bill had the snappy title of … Read more
After ruthlessly exploiting their monopoly power by imposing payment terms of up to 90 days on thousands of small suppliers, dairy giant Fonterra has bowed to morality with a new invoicing policy. Dairy giant Fonterra is responsible for around 30% of the world’s milk products, has revenue exceeding $17bn and was famous for paying its … Read more
Imagine you didn’t get paid for a month or two for your work. Big businesses have used this tactic to keep cash in the bank – but how long do our corporates take to pay? Rebecca Stevenson investigates. In New Zealand, they account for 97% of businesses. In Australia, 97%. In the UK, 96%. Small … Read more
Our piece on the struggle to get paid resonated widely with small business owners. Here are their stories, and some tips, covering the endless fight to get invoices paid. A customer who had hired goods from me failed to return them, and ultimately I had to go and collect them. Not all of the goods were returned, … Read more