July 26th, 2010 by Alex Coté
As we do each month, today, we published our latest report of small business payment activities (see chart below). After watching as the gap grew between the payment habits of large and small businesses throughout the worst periods of the recession, both indices have now converged into a tighter pattern. The SBI peaked out in [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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.
