A recent report commissioned by the people at BACS indicates there is 18.6billion pounds in late payments owed to the UK's SMEs.

Even if these numbers are inflated, this represents a shocking amount of debt. It's no wonder that it is so difficult to get a business established in this country.

The main problem with late payments is that there is a knock-on effect. IE: Business C is owed £2,000 by Business B and therefore can't pay the £1,000 owed to Business A.

The problem is unless you only take payments for all services upfront, this is going to be a continuing problem.

My own experiences suggest that UK businesses are particularly slow payers. I dealt solely with American businesses for several years (although I was and am UK based) and they tended to pay on time every time. This despite the fact that it would be easier for a US based business to stiff me altogether.

One of the most interesting things about the survey was this :

"SMEs in the North East are the least likely to experience problems (42 per cent against the national average). North West SMEs have the best results when it comes to overdue invoices. They spend just 12 days chasing guilty suppliers and 45 per cent said they experienced late payments from time to time."

Greater London, somewhat unsurprisingly, had the most problem with overdue invoices.

I would be interested in hearing people's solutions to this problem because, to be honest, I don't have many bright ideas.

I think that toughening up laws surrounding late payments and allowing businesses to charge extremely high interest rates on late invoices might help, but further than that, I'd be interested in hearing ideas.