This article is a useful reminder that the longer your debtors take to pay then the greater the chance that you will run into cash flow problems. According to the article large companies are taking an average of nearly 81 days to pay their suppliers, small companies almost 60 days and medium-sized companies 61 days.
1 Why do you think that generally larger companies take much longer than small and medium-sized companies to pay their suppliers?
2 What can suppliers do to protect themselves?
3 What is the effect on

(a) their accounting profit,

(b) their cash flow if their customers take almost 12 weeks to pay what they owe?
4 Once they are into a regular cycle does it matter if they know that their larger customers are going to be slow payers?