Invoicing skills lacking says Exact survey

The survey, carried out by the financial and business software supplier Exact, showed the biggest cause of stress for SME manufacturers is worries over finances (29%), such as cash-flow issues, debtors and business planning, with pressures related to winning new business (28%) and worries about workload (21%), second and third respectively. Not far off a third (29%) of business owners and leaders in manufacturing admitted that they didn't feel fully in control of their accounts and business finances. Exact says the ramifications of these shortcomings also appear to have a wider impact on businesses with over half (52%) saying that they had to defer payments of one kind or another due to cash-flow problems, including failing to pay their staff wages on time (13%). "We don't want to blow this issue out of proportion," said Hartmut Wagner, managing director of Cloud Solution Exact, "but these findings do highlight that many SMEs working in the manufacturing sector who are eager to grow are not doing themselves any favours by losing out unnecessarily on millions in revenue income, particularly with so many expressing concern over their cash-flow." Mukesh Shah, of accountancy firm HW Fisher, said the findings of the research seemed to suggest that there was a need for better working practices and processes to be in place between accountants and their SME clients.