7 out of 10 companies in Romania postpone invoice payment, 53pct have no financial resources (analysis)

Seven out of 10 companies in Romania postpone the payment of their invoices, while the average duration to cash an invoice at the level of the economy reached almost 120 days, a poll-based select analysis says.

According to the data by Frames & Train Your Brain, 68pct of the managers of the companies operating in Romania have admitted that they postpone the payment of their invoices to the maximum limit, to ensure their cash flow necessary to continue their businesses.

"In the Romanian economy, it became almost a custom to do business on the business partners' money. If they have not enough financial resources, and the access to loans is practically impossible from various reasons, more and more companies delay their invoices' pay," the document reads.

The main reasons the companies do not pay their financial obligations in time are given by the shortage of the available financial resources, mentioned by 53pct of the respondents, seconded by the non-collection of the invoices (22pct), the growth of the operational costs(15pct), the sales' curtailment (7pct) and other reasons (3pct).

When quizzed about the average period they need to pay their invoices, 42pct said 3 - 4 months, 37pct said 2 - 3 months, 16pct said 1 - 2 months, while 5pct said over 4 months. The most affected fields are the constructions, the extractive industry, the agriculture, the trade, the pharma sector, the transports and the services.

The Frames & Train Your Brain poll was carried in 2-7 May 2019, on 180 representative companies of all the economic spectre, from trade and the processing industry to constructions and tourism.