The invoice was paid 14 days late. It was raised 19 days late.

Most businesses measure how slowly customers pay. Far fewer measure the gap they create themselves, and it is often the larger half of the problem.

By Steve 5 min read
Abstract bridge artwork for The invoice was paid 14 days late. It was raised 19 days late.

A business chasing debtors is usually looking in the right direction and at the wrong distance. The conversation is about the customer: who is slow, who needs a call, whether terms should be tightened. What rarely surfaces is the period before the invoice existed at all: the days between the work being finished and the document being raised. That gap is entirely within the business’s own control, it costs exactly the same as customer lateness, and in a surprising number of service firms it is the bigger number. The metric…

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