January 15th, 2010 by Alex Coté
Just last month, we reported that small businesses were paying their bills in an increasingly timely manner. After a year of predictable delinquencies, Main Street was exhibiting payment behavior more typical of better times. But as we said then, and as is evidence in the latest NFIB survey, this improving behavior seems to fly in [...]
December 14th, 2009 by Alex Coté
Today, we published our latest report of small business payment activities (see chart below). After witnessing a growing gap between the payment habits of large and small businesses – as recently as a month ago small businesses payments languished at a 38 percent higher days beyond terms (DBT) than big businesses, who had since returned [...]
December 2nd, 2009 by Alex Coté
Last month we reported a break from a normal, historical seasonal cycle in the Cortera Supply Chain Index – payments between stakeholders had slowed after 4 months of improving conditions — and posed the question: Why the early jump in the SCI? Normally we see this kind of jump in the November and December months [...]
November 20th, 2009 by Alex Coté
In case our posts haven’t given it away, we’ve been watching the small business credit crunch in earnest over the past year. While the central theme always seemed to be same – big lenders get increasingly stingy, leave Main Street mom-and-pops starving for credit – our own data and our conversations with credit pros suggested [...]
November 10th, 2009 by Alex Coté
The S&P is up over 50% since its March 2009 lows and yet for most of us, the leading indicators and large company earnings seem to defy the reality on Main Street. Newsweek offered a view on why such a gap may exist – and some indicators are emerging to focus on small business sentiment [...]
November 3rd, 2009 by Alex Coté
After four consecutive months of improvement in our Supply Chain Index numbers the October 2009 Report shows a reversal to levels not seen since early 2009. While this might be a cause for concern, this increase is likely part of a normal seasonal trend that we have tracked for several years now. Corporate slowing of [...]
October 21st, 2009 by Alex Coté
Yesterday we focused on how companies in Nevada have the highest amount of past due accounts receivable debt in nation for the first 9 months of the year, giving the recession weary state another dubious distinction. On the flip side, businesses based in all 6 New England states have maintained better than average – or [...]
October 20th, 2009 by Alex Coté
Today we issued our monthly best and worst states in terms of the payment behavior of companies in those states. We started this reporting back in January and one data point has been consistent: the state of Nevada has remained at the top of worst performing states with over 25% of corporate receivables past due [...]
October 14th, 2009 by Alex Coté
On Monday, the New York Times detailed how the worsening credit conditions are affecting small businesses, as banks take on an increasingly risk adverse approach to lending and credit lines. Yesterday we talked about how small businesses are getting squeezed by increasingly late payments. Today, the Dow closed above the 10,000 mark for the first time in a year, buoyed by better than expected earnings from a few bellwethers and early signs of improving consumer confidence. The common thread in all of these events? Conditions do indeed seem to be improving for many of the nation’s large businesses. Unfortunately, a dual credit crunch conspires to thwart similar growth by the small businesses that make up the majority of the nation’s jobs engine and 50% of the GDP.
October 13th, 2009 by Jim Swift
A few weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal explained how small companies are getting paid more slowly by their large company customers while those same large companies are forcing the little guys to pay faster. Well, Cortera’s data is showing that the little guys are getting paid more slowly by their small business customers, too.
