More than 1/3 of companies issue fewer invoices per month than before the pandemic, according to the study “Financial liquidity of SMEs in a pandemic”, commissioned by the National Debt Register of the Economic Information Bureau and the NFG factoring company. On the other extreme, there are companies that issue more invoices per month than before – 26.8% in a pandemic. On the other hand, 38.8% of entrepreneurs are not able to determine if and how the number of invoices issued by them has changed in a month.
“It is in industry that we have the relatively best situation in the pandemic. The PMI index in December increased to 51.7 points from 50.8 points in November. Manufacturing companies, especially those cooperating with foreign countries, even record increases in orders. However, the sectors are doing worse: In the former, as many as 42% of companies complain about a decrease in the number of invoices issued. Meanwhile, let us remember that a smaller number of invoices also means lower revenues for companies’ budgets. Our data shows that in a pandemic, fear of losing liquidity financial, more construction companies resorted to factoring “- said the president of NFG Dariusz Szkaradek.
Loss of contracts or orders is most noticeable in small companies and in the construction industry. More invoices are currently being issued by medium-sized and manufacturing companies.
According to the survey, the main reason for the lower number of invoices issued is weaker demand for products and services (55.2%), restrictions in the activities of contractors due to restrictions (53.5%) and financial problems of customers (44.8%). Entrepreneurs indicate that they also operate to a limited extent as a result of the restrictions (35.5%) or their contractors / clients closed their business (18%).
The study showed that more than 1/4 of entrepreneurs issue up to 10 invoices less (mainly micro-entrepreneurs from the construction industry), and small companies, mainly from the commercial industry, lost up to 30 invoices a month.
“While the issued invoice can be transferred to an external company for financing and receive money even if the contractor is late, such support cannot be obtained if the invoice has not been issued at all. Therefore, fewer invoices mean less chance of obtaining secure financing for The role of overt factoring is particularly important here, in which the factor takes care of the recovery of funds from the contractor. In other words, it helps the entrepreneur recover money. And this is an extremely valuable value in a pandemic, when every zloty counts for companies “- said the president of the NFG.
The study “Financial liquidity of SMEs in a pandemic” commissioned by the National Debt Register and the NFG factoring company was carried out by IMAS International in Q4 2020 using the CAWI method on a group of 500 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.
Source: ISBnews
