Collecting Receivables in India - Addl Inputs
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Collecting Receivables – Key Solutions
1. Government should make some guidelines about the payments to be received by SMEs
2. The deliveries done by the SMEs should be insured (with premium charged)
3. Dishonouring contracts should be made a strict legal offence
4. There should be a law that 50% of the order should be paid before its execution
5. Penalty should be imposed, if the full payment is not made in the credit period stipulated
6. Payment to small entrepreneur must be settled by corporates within a maximum period of
60 days
7. SMEs should have a rating platform where they can rate corporates on doing business and on time payments
8. Government should prepare a list of regular defaulters and take action against them
9. A small scale enterprise should ensure that the suppliers and buyers are educated of their business, capacity and terms & conditions
10. Banks should look at the payment track record of the companies before giving them loans
11. New businesses could hire BBA/MBA interns to facilitate in planning their credit sales and realisation of bills
12. Cheque bouncing cases should be considered as criminal offences with serious repercussions for the errant parties
13. Penalty for delay in payments should be twice that of cost of finance.
Collecting Receivables - Key Issues
1. Corporates and Government entities delay the payments for small entrepreneurs
2. Buyers arm-twist the small players
3. Bad debts are common
4. Many large corporates don’t honor even written contracts
5. Some companies simply refuse to pay irrespective of the credit period
6. Big companies normally ask for very long credit periods. This seriously affects the cash flow of SMEs
7. Many SMEs are forced to shut down due to their payments being stuck
8. Pending receivables also result in small industries not being able to pay to suppliers, resulting in a raw material shortage
9. Many times, bribes are demanded to get the payments cleared
10. An SME at times has to bribe to win business, negotiate on prices, then again bribe and negotiate to collect dues
11. There is very little an SME can do if a large private corporate delays or defaults
12. The overdraft facility in banks cost heavily
13. Most of the small scale units are unable to pay their dues in time
14. Most of the times SMEs fail to speculate credit risk
15. The credit rating mechanism is below average in India and SMEs don’t trust it or know about it
16. There is no effective legal mechanism to address contractual violations on payments by Government departments, private companies. more