According to IPSE, the Association of Independent Professionals and Self Employed, if you work for yourself then you spend 20 days a year trying to get paid.
It’s bizarre if you ask me…when you consider how easy it is now for companies to pay contractors for their services with options like Paypal and bank transfer, I just can’t work out why so many self employed people are having problems getting the money they deserve.
Apparently, it’s mostly big companies that are not paying out, which doesn’t surprise me one bit, because if there is one thing we all know it is that some of these multi national companies can be a real hassle to deal with.
Everyone you speak to just wants to send you to another department, constantly trying to pass the blame. Maybe you can relate to that one if you’ve ever done some contracting work for a big company before? You couldn’t make it up how difficult they are to deal with at times.
The research by IPSE also went to point out that this 20 days a year we all spend chasing up payments equals about £16.5 billion in lost income. This is just plain madness and something really needs to be done about it…pronto.
Well, we might be seeing action taken soon enough, because it appears that people in high places have been taking notice of how big companies are treating the self employed, and if things go to plan then late payment could soon be a thing of the past.
Just imagine how much more cash you could make if you didn’t have to spend 20 days of your year chasing up companies that make billions, but can’t to seem to pay you what they owe? If the small business minister, Margot James is to be believed, then by April of this year all big companies and Limited Partnerships will have to check in twice a year with information about their payment practices.
In other words, if they don’t pay you, then the government are going to be asking why. One of the numbers that is going to be looked more closely at is the average amount of time it takes to pay invoices, and if it is too long then they can expect a fine.
I’m sure this is going to mean that contractors finally start to get paid quicker for their work, it is just a shame that it had to come to this…don’t you agree? What a sad state of affairs when the government needs to step in and say “pay people for the work they have done.” It’s almost as if these big companies expect people to work for free. Some times I think they do.
Nearly 5 million people are currently self employed in the UK, and with virtually nothing being done right now to ensure they get paid, this new move by the government is much needed.
