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https://www.noxia.co.uk/field-notes/eighty-six-hours-chasing · printed from noxia.co.uk · sources checked 24 September 2026

Field note · Getting started

Eighty-six hours a year chasing money you have already earned.

Late payment is usually discussed as a cash flow problem, which it is. It is also a labour problem: two working weeks a year of somebody sending polite emails about invoices that were never in dispute.

3 min read Sources checked 24 September 2026

The short answer

The Small Business Commissioner cites small businesses spending 86 non-productive hours chasing debt and 38 small businesses closing every day because of late payment. The Commercial Payments Bill, introduced in the Lords on 19 May 2026, would cap payment terms at 60 days with strictly limited exemptions, mandate interest on late payment, and let the Commissioner investigate, enforce and make binding interim decisions on disputes. Large companies report payment performance in directors’ reports for years from January 2026.

On this page · 5 sections

Two figures sit under this and they measure different things. Thirty-eight closures a day is the catastrophic tail. Eighty-six hours is the ordinary case, and it is the one almost every small firm recognises.

What eighty-six hours is spent onAn invoice is issued, then falls due, then a first reminder is sent, then a chase, then an escalation, and eventually it is paid. The reminder and chase stages are where the non-productive hours accumulate, and neither disputes the amount.WHAT EIGHTY-SIX HOURS IS SPENT ONInvoicedDay 0work already doneFalls dueDay 30or 60, or 90Reminder1stpoliteChasing2nd, 3rdstill politeEventuallyPaidno dispute, everEach mark is one invoice moving toward payment.Nothing in this sequence is a disagreement about the amount owed.What eighty-six hours is spent onAn invoice is issued, then falls due, then a first reminder is sent, then a chase, then an escalation, and eventually it is paid. The reminder and chase stages are where the non-productive hours accumulate, and neither disputes the amount.WHAT EIGHTY-SIX HOURS IS SPENT ONInvoicedwork already doneDay 0Falls dueor 60, or 90Day 30Reminderpolite1stChasingstill polite2nd, 3rdEventuallyno dispute, everPaidEach mark is one invoice moving toward payment.Nothing in this sequence is a disagreement about theamount owed.
Two working weeks a year, on invoices nobody disputed.Small Business Commissioner, on measures to tackle late payment.

That is the detail worth holding. These are not disputed invoices. A disputed invoice is a commercial problem with a commercial answer. An undisputed invoice paid late is a transfer of working capital from the smaller party to the larger one, executed by making somebody send emails until it stops.

What the bill does

The Commercial Payments Bill was introduced in the House of Lords on 19 May 2026, after a consultation and a government response in March, and passed its report stage there on 15 September. It would impose maximum payment terms of 60 days, with strictly limited exemptions. Today two businesses can agree longer, and that is the mechanism by which a large buyer's standard terms become 90 or 120 days and a small supplier agrees because the alternative is not selling.

Alongside it: interest on late payment made mandatory at 8% above base rate; a fixed sum for the supplier when a buyer raises a dispute late or without enough information; a ban on retention payments in construction contracts; and powers for the Small Business Commissioner to investigate persistent late payers, take enforcement action, and adjudicate payment disputes with binding interim decisions, outside the courts.

Separately, and already law: for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2026, large companies must put their payment performance — average days to pay, the share paid late — in the directors' report. That moves the information from a specialist register to the document a board signs, and the first of those reports arrive in 2027.

Limiting the right to agree worse terms is the substantive change. Everything else enforces a limit that could previously be contracted away.

What a small firm can do before any of it arrives

  1. Measure your own 86 hours. Count the reminders sent last quarter and multiply. Most firms have never priced this and are surprised by the number.
  2. Check the Fair Payment Code. Over 333 awards had been made by July 2025 — 185 Gold, 65 Silver, 85 Bronze. Whether a prospective customer holds one is knowable before you sign, and it is a better signal than their sales team.
  3. Automate the chase, not the relationship. A scheduled, logged, escalating reminder sequence removes the hours without removing the judgement about when to pick up the phone. That is exactly the shape of a chasing system, and it is the least glamorous thing we build.

What this does not tell you

The two headline figures are the Commissioner's own and are cited without a method in the source we read — we could not establish the sample behind "86 non-productive hours" or "38 small businesses" a day, and we would treat both as advocacy figures from a body whose job is advocacy. They are directionally plausible and we are not going to pretend they are measured.

The bill is also a bill. It still has to pass the Commons, its terms can change there, and it starts only when regulations bring it into force. The one part of this that is already law is the directors' report requirement.

What is not in doubt is the structure: an undisputed invoice paid late is a financing arrangement nobody agreed to, and chasing it is work nobody bills for. Whether a system to do the chasing pays for itself is arithmetic, and the calculator answers it with your own hours in it.

Questions people actually ask

How much time do small businesses spend chasing late payment?

The Small Business Commissioner cites 86 non-productive hours spent chasing debt — roughly two working weeks a year. It also cites 38 small businesses closing every day because of late payment. Both figures are given without a stated method in the source we read.

What is in the Commercial Payments Bill?

Maximum payment terms of 60 days with strictly limited exemptions; mandatory interest on late payment at 8% above base rate; a fixed sum for suppliers when a buyer raises a dispute late or without enough information; a ban on construction retentions; and powers for the Small Business Commissioner to investigate, enforce and adjudicate payment disputes with binding interim decisions. It began in the Lords on 19 May 2026.

What changed in January 2026?

The Companies (Directors’ Report) (Payment Reporting) Regulations 2025 came into force. For financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2026, large companies must include payment performance — including average days to pay and the share of payments made late — in their directors’ report, so the first such reports arrive in 2027.

What is the Fair Payment Code?

A voluntary code launched in December 2024 with Gold, Silver and Bronze awards. Over 333 awards had been made by July 2025 — 185 Gold, 65 Silver and 85 Bronze. Whether a prospective customer holds one is checkable before you contract with them.

Sources

  1. Small Business Commissioner, “Government consults on measures to tackle late payments and more powers for the Small Business Commissioner”, read 23 September 2026: proposals include “Setting maximum payment terms to 60 days, removing the exemption that allows businesses to agree terms longer than 60 days”, and powers to “investigate businesses, impose fines and make legally binding arbitration” plus spot-checks on payment performance reporting; large companies include headline payment performance in annual reports from January 2026; cited figures of “86 non-productive hours on chasing debt” and “38 small businesses shut up shop every day due to late payment”; the Fair Payment Code launched December 2024 had made “over 333 Fair Payment Code Awards” as at July 2025 (185 Gold, 65 Silver, 85 Bronze). smallbusinesscommissioner.gov.uk ↗ — primary for the consultation, which the bill below has overtaken. The two headline figures are cited by the Commissioner without a stated method and we could not trace the sample — treat them as advocacy figures from a body whose role is advocacy re-checked every 6 months
  2. Department for Business and Trade, “Commercial Payments Bill: overview”, published 19 May 2026 and updated 22 September 2026: “imposing maximum payment terms of 60 days, with strictly limited exemptions”; “mandating interest on late payments at 8% above the Bank of England base rate”; “giving suppliers the right to a fixed sum where a purchaser raises a dispute late or without sufficient information”; “prohibiting the deduction and withholding of retention payments under the terms of a construction contract”; the Small Business Commissioner to “investigate larger businesses suspected of persistently engaging in poor payment practices”, “take enforcement action” and “adjudicate contractual payment disputes … and make binding interim decisions”. gov.uk ↗ — primary; the department’s own summary of its bill re-checked every 30 days
  3. UK Parliament, Commercial Payments Bill [HL]: introduced in the House of Lords; amended on report on 15 September 2026 and at third reading there when we read it on 24 September. It has still to pass the Commons. bills.parliament.uk ↗ — primary; the bill’s own record re-checked every 30 days
  4. The Companies (Directors’ Report) (Payment Reporting) Regulations 2025, SI 2025/1152, made 30 October 2025: in force 1 January 2026, and “have effect in respect of a company’s financial year beginning on or after 1st January 2026”; large companies disclose their standard payment period, average days to pay, and the share and value of payments made late. legislation.gov.uk ↗ — primary; the regulations re-checked every 6 months
  5. The framing of an undisputed late invoice as an unagreed financing arrangement, and the three things to do, are ours. — our own argument, labelled as such

Checked 24 September 2026. Next scheduled check 24 October 2026. Numbers that move — leaderboards, live indices — are re-checked every 30 days; annual datasets and rules in force every six months; dated research once a year. If something here has gone stale before we got to it, tell us and we will correct it and say what changed.

Cite this note

Noxia, “Eighty-six hours a year chasing money you have already earned”, Field notes, 23 September 2026; sources checked 24 September 2026. https://www.noxia.co.uk/field-notes/eighty-six-hours-chasing

Count the reminders you sent last quarter, then multiply.

Almost nobody has priced their own chasing, and the number is usually two working weeks. We build the sequence that sends itself — scheduled, escalating, logged, and stopping the moment payment lands — so the hours come back and the judgement about when to phone stays with a person.

Talk to us about this
Getting started: Eighty-six hours a year chasing money you have already earned.

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