Council of Small Business Australia (COSBOA), the Australian Industry (Ai) Group and the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) have launched a campaign calling for all Australian businesses to pay their bills on time.
COSBOA CEO Peter Strong, Ai Group CEO Innes Willox and AICD MD and CEO John Brogden claim Australia’s business sector has developed a culture of paying invoices well past the internationally accepted 30-day standard.
“Not many people are aware of how entrenched this behaviour has become in our business world,” Mr Strong said. “It has become increasingly more common for a 90-day payment frame to be included in B2B contracts. In some cases this has extended out as far as 120 days.
“This behaviour has even extended to the payment of individual contractors who, in some cases, are now facing 60-day payment terms. Individual contractors, unlike B2B payments, often rely on this money to live, to pay mortgages and to put food on the table. In these instances, late payments can have a huge impact.”
The campaign calls upon the CEOs of Australia’s major companies to take the lead and make a public statement that their company will be paying on 30-day terms by June 2018.