October letter from the Chair of the Cashflow Council

Dear members,

October has been a month of moving from evidence toward a decision. On 26 October, the Assembly opened the adoption ballot on CF-001, our proposed 15-Day Pay Standard. It remains open through 9 November. The question is direct: should large buyers pay small suppliers within 15 days of an undisputed invoice, apply automatic interest when payment is late, and publish their payment times?

That question has been shaped by the reports you filed, the pattern test, and the consultation. The consultation closed on 24 September with 362 comments. We have not treated a large number of comments as a substitute for judgment. We have treated them as a responsibility: to read carefully, distinguish practical objections from delay, and bring a clear proposal to the ballot.

On 21 October, the Council also issued an open letter to businesses that already pay in 15 days, RC/CF/2026/25. It recognizes that prompt payment is not an abstract aspiration. Businesses are already doing it. Their practice matters because it shows that the standard we are asking for can be made ordinary.

The numbers behind the work

As of 27 October, the Cashflow Council has 427 members across 49 countries and has received 1,358 reports from 50 countries. Seventy-two reports came in during the last 30 days. Across those reports, the median amount at stake is approximately US$4,296. That is a median, not a measure of the total damage. It is also not a small amount for a business that has payroll, rent, stock or tax bills due on a fixed date.

Of the reports, 1,101 describe a client paying late and 257 describe supplier terms. The difference is important. A late-paying customer can leave a business short of cash; a supplier’s terms can put pressure on it before the work even begins. These problems are connected, but the person who has least room to absorb the delay often has the least power to change it.

Our members are not one kind of business. Thirty-seven per cent of reporting members work alone; 42 per cent have teams of two to nine. Sixteen per cent have teams of 10 to 49, and five per cent have teams of 50 to 249. Those figures remind us that “small supplier” can mean a sole operator waiting for one payment, or a growing employer trying to meet a whole team’s obligations.

The Council is part of a much larger reality: micro, small and medium-sized enterprises make up about 90 per cent of businesses worldwide and account for roughly 60–70 per cent of employment.¹ The International Labour Organization estimates that MSMEs provide around 70 per cent of employment worldwide.² Payment practices are not a side issue for a narrow group. They affect whether a large part of the economy can plan, invest and keep people working.

One member’s account

One member’s report, shared here without a name or identifying business details, described finishing agreed work for a large buyer and sending an undisputed invoice. The due date passed. The member followed up, but still had no firm payment date to plan around. In the meantime, a supplier needed to be paid and the member had to choose which outgoing could wait. Work had been completed; the uncertainty came afterward.

There was no dramatic single moment in this account. There was a sequence: finish the work, submit the invoice, wait, follow up, rearrange payments, and carry the risk. That sequence is exactly why the proposed standard includes more than a deadline. Fifteen days sets a clear expectation; automatic interest makes lateness have a consequence

without requiring a small supplier to bargain for it; publication makes performance visible.

We should be precise about what the standard does and does not promise. It cannot prevent every dispute, and it does not remove the need to resolve a genuine question about an invoice. It says that an undisputed invoice should not become a source of indefinite, cost-free credit for the buyer.

What we learned this month

First, the detail matters. Members want a rule that works in accounts-payable systems and does not make a supplier fight case by case for basic fairness. Second, the burden of chasing payment is itself a cost. It consumes time that a small team could spend serving customers or doing paid work. Third, transparency is part of the remedy. Without published payment times, a supplier may have to make a major decision with little information about how a buyer behaves.

We also learned that a standard must be judged by its effect on the smaller party, not by the convenience it offers the larger one. The practical test is not whether a payment process is comfortable for the organization with the most bargaining power. It is whether the supplier can know when money will arrive and make commitments accordingly.

What comes next

• Through 9 November: the Assembly ballot on CF-001 remains open. Members should read the final draft and cast their vote.

• Through 12 November: consultation on FP-001 remains open. The Fair Play Council’s process is separate, but its work on platform fairness is part of the same larger effort to make commercial terms more accountable.

• 17 November: letters to the proposed Wave 2 CEO seats are scheduled to go out. The proposed seats concern mid-sized platforms; the letters will ask for adoption, not presume a reply.

On 20 October, the Trade Council’s TR-001 passed its pattern test. That is another reminder that the Assembly’s work continues through evidence, review and member decisions—not through announcements alone. For our Council, the immediate task is to finish this ballot with care and then report its result plainly.

Notes and sources

Sources

1. United Nations: Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day
2. International Labour Organization: Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises