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Businesses paying bills faster


Private firms paying bills faster than public sector, South Island firms faster than North Island ones.

Robert McCambridge
Wed, 16 Nov 2011

New Zealand businesses are paying their bills faster again, back to timeframes not seen since the global financial crisis.

According to results published by Dun & Bradstreet, Businesses around the country took on average 44 days during the September quarter of 2011 in order to pay off their bills, an improvement of more than four days since the onset of the ongoing global financial crisis.

These results show promise, as a major cause of financial and economic failures associated within the business industry relate to poor handling of regular cash flow.

As a result of this increase in earlier payments, key findings comparing trade payment regularities show that Kiwi firms have outperformed those in Australia with the number of firms paying bills more than 90 days overdue dropping 24% in the past 12 months in comparison to the Australian figure, which only increased 15% over the same time span.

Observing these results nationally, firms based in the South Island have been the faster payers, which on average took 43 days compared to North Island firms which took an average of 45 days to pay.

Comparatively, private companies took just 44 days on average to pay off their bills whereas companies in the public sector took an average number of 49 days.

Industries quickest in paying trade bills are both Forestry and Mining which have on average taken 39 days each, with Communications and Electric, Gas & Sanitary Services being the slowest paying industries with a much higher average of 50 days each.

This increase in earlier trade bill payments shows promise for local businesses around the country as the increases ultimately raise the amount of cash flow circulating around relative business sectors.

Robert McCambridge
Wed, 16 Nov 2011
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Businesses paying bills faster
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