MANCHESTER, UK — Businesses across Greater Manchester are being encouraged to take a more structured approach to chasing unpaid invoices, as new figures point to an on-going late payment crisis that continues to weigh on small and medium-sized firms nationwide.

According to the latest SME Performance Pulse from Sage, published in June 2026, nearly half of all invoices issued by UK small businesses, 49 per cent remain overdue, with firms waiting an average of 27 days beyond their agreed terms to be paid. The knock-on effect is significant: SMEs themselves are now taking an average of 37.1 days to settle their own supplier invoices, up from 31.9 days a year earlier, as delayed income forces businesses to slow down their own payment cycles.

Greater Manchester’s economy has diversified substantially over the past two decades, with growth across media and digital at MediaCityUK, financial and professional services in Spinningfields, creative industries in Ancoats and the Northern Quarter, and manufacturing activity concentrated around Trafford Park. That diversity has helped the city region weather economic pressure better than many parts of the UK, but it has not made local firms immune to the cash flow strain caused by slow-paying clients.

Manufacturing and construction firms, which often operate on extended payment chains and tighter margins, tend to be hit hardest when a payment further up the chain is delayed. A subcontractor waiting on a main contractor, or a small manufacturer waiting on a larger buyer, can find that a single overdue invoice disrupts payroll, materials orders and growth plans all at once.

Leading B2C and Private Debt Collection Agency Frontline Collections, who have offices in Manchester and work with businesses and individuals across the UK, said it continues to see the effects of late payment culture among local firms, particularly those without the internal resources to chase outstanding balances consistently.

“Cash flow problems rarely announce themselves in advance,” Chris Spencer for Frontline Collections said. “By the time a business notices the strain, an invoice has often been outstanding for weeks or months, and the customer relationship has usually deteriorated too. The businesses that fare best are the ones who follow up early and are prepared to escalate before the debt becomes difficult or too late to recover.”

Top Business-to-business debt collection experts, Federal Management, which handles commercial debt collection cases across the UK including for firms based in Manchester and the wider North West, points to the legal protections and preventative measures already available to businesses for unpaid b2b invoices. 

Under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, businesses are entitled to charge statutory interest of 8 per cent above the Bank of England base rate on overdue commercial invoices, along with reasonable recovery costs, provided payment terms were clearly documented from the outset.

Industry Experts at Federal Management advise that prevention is usually better than a cure so adequate credit credit control and regular credit checking can often prevent overdue invoices and unwanted business debts.

Separately, the Office of the Small Business Commissioner introduced the Fair Payment Code in late 2024, replacing the earlier Prompt Payment Code, as a voluntary framework encouraging larger businesses to commit to fairer payment practices. Even so, research published by Hiscox in February 2026 found that UK SMEs remain collectively owed £70.4 billion, suggesting the code has yet to significantly shift payment behaviour across the wider business population.

The Federation of Small Businesses has previously estimated that around 50,000 UK small businesses close each year as a direct result of cash flow problems linked to late payment — a reminder, industry commentators say, that unpaid invoices are rarely a minor administrative inconvenience.

Businesses in Manchester and the surrounding region are advised to formalise payment terms in writing, run credit checks on new clients, issue reminders ahead of due dates, and seek professional support once internal chasing has been exhausted.

About Federal Management Federal Management is an award winning FCA-regulated commercial debt collection agency providing leading professional B2B recovery services to businesses across the UK, including sectors such as construction, manufacturing, agriculture, logistics and professional services. More information is available at federalmanagement.co.uk.

About Frontline Collections Frontline Collections is a top FCA-regulated debt recovery agency headquartered in Manchester, specialising in consumer and smaller commercial debt recovery, including sectors such as private schools, healthcare and veterinary services. More information is available at frontline-collections.com.

CARLISLE, UK. September 2nd, 2026 – Home insurance claims have reached new levels this year, with the average payout climbing beyond £7,000. Figures from the Association of British Insurers published last month show that claims involving flooding, storms and burst pipes averaged £8,548 during the second quarter of 2026. That represents a 12% increase compared with the same period in 2025.

A Carlisle roofing company says roof damage is the category where homeowners are most likely to discover the money is not coming.

The reason is a word most people never encounter until a loss adjuster uses it. Causation. Buildings insurance pays for sudden accidental damage; it has never covered deterioration, and no standard UK policy ever will. So when slates come off in a gale, the question the insurer asks is not how bad the weather was. It is whether the weather broke something, or found something already broken.

“That distinction decides the claim, and almost nobody knows it exists until they are on the wrong side of it,” said David of Roof Repairs Carlisle. “We get called to roofs where the nails rusted through years ago. The slates were sitting there by weight and friction and not much else. One decent gust and half a course is in the garden, and from the adjuster’s point of view the storm exposed a maintenance problem rather than caused one. The claim gets refused, and the homeowner is genuinely baffled, because there was a storm and there is a hole.”

What tips a claim one way or the other, the company says, is rarely the photographs of the damage. It is whether anyone can describe the mechanism.

“A report saying ‘roof damaged in high winds‘ is close to worthless,” David said. “What an adjuster wants is ‘wind uplift at the verge has lifted the end slates and fractured the mortar bedding’. That sentence explains how the storm did it. The first one just says something happened. We have seen claims turn around on nothing more than a roofer going up and writing the second version instead of the first.”

Cumbria has more at stake here than most counties. Carlisle sits at the end of an open run in from the Atlantic with the Solway funnelling weather inland, and Met Office 1991-2020 averages give the city 918.8mm of rain across 152.6 days a year. Frequency does more damage than volume. Roofs here get wet, dry out and get wet again several hundred times a winter, and fixings corrode on that cycle rather than in any single storm.

Which is why the firm is pushing homeowners to act now rather than in December.

“Everything that protects a claim has to exist before the damage does,” David said. “Dated photographs of the roof in good order. A record that somebody competent looked at it. Once the slates are in the garden, you are arguing from nothing. September is the month that decides how February goes.”

What a roof damage claim actually needs:

• Dated photographs of every elevation taken now, while the roof is intact. These are what establish the roof was sound beforehand.
• The date and, if possible, the time the damage happened. Insurers check this against Met Office records for the postcode.
• A written report describing the failure mechanism, not just the damage.
• An itemised quote rather than a single lump sum, so each element can be approved separately.
• Receipts for any emergency work done to prevent further damage. That cost is normally recoverable.
• Your policy’s own definition of a storm. Most set a wind speed threshold in the region of 55mph.

Homeowners are generally entitled to appoint a roofer of their own choosing rather than one sent by the insurer, though the insurer may want to approve the cost first. Where a claim is declined and the handling looks unfair, the Financial Ombudsman Service will review it free of charge once the insurer’s own complaints process is exhausted.

Roof Repairs Carlisle offers free roof inspections across Carlisle and Cumbria. Details are at www.roofrepairsincarlisle.co.uk/storm-damage-repairs.

EXETER, UK. September 2nd, 2026 – Homeowners across Exeter are choosing bathroom fitters on figures that cannot fairly be compared, according to a local installer that reviews competing paperwork as part of its own survey process.

Luxury Bathrooms Exeter says it regularly meets homeowners holding three quotes for what they believe is one identical job, separated by thousands of pounds. A customer in Pinhoe earlier this year had been quoted £11,400, £14,800 and £17,900 for the same room. None of the three firms had done anything wrong. They had priced three different specifications. One allowed £400 for taps and shower valves where another allowed £1,640, and only one had priced the floor preparation at all.

The company estimates around one in four quote comparisons brought to it at survey stage has the same fault underneath it: the totals differ because the scope differs, not because one firm is charging more for the same work.

For homeowners, the risk is that the cheapest quote is often the least complete. Allowances for items the customer has not yet chosen, known in the trade as prime cost sums, can be set low enough to make a total look competitive, then climb sharply once real tiles and brassware are picked. Work nobody can price until the old bathroom comes out, such as floor decking, joists and the plaster behind forty-year-old tiles, may appear as a provisional sum in one document and go unmentioned in the next.

“A quote that lists what it cannot yet price usually lands closer to the final bill than one that reads clean,” said Ross of Luxury Bathrooms Exeter. “If nobody has mentioned the floor, nobody has looked at it.”

Exeter’s housing stock sharpens the point. Much of the city’s Victorian and Edwardian terracing, along with its older semis, sits on suspended timber floors that cannot be assessed until the existing covering comes up. A price given without a site visit has no basis for that work at all.

The firm has published guidance on lining competing quotes up on equal terms. Its central recommendation is to ask every firm for an itemised specification, with each product named or given a supply budget, each area of tiling measured and each trade listed, then to test those allowances against what the homeowner actually intends to buy rather than against each other. It also suggests adding up every provisional sum in each document, noting what each one stays quiet about, and confirming whether VAT is included, which on its own moves a total by a fifth.

“Nobody should be picking a fitter on a single number,” Ross added. “Ask for the breakdown before you ask for the price. Any firm worth hiring already has one.”

• Look at the edges rather than the middle of the roof. Wind does its damage by getting under a ridge, a hip, a verge or the first course above the gutter and lifting. The centre of a slope usually rides a storm out
• Watch the metalwork. On a coastal roof, rusting gutter brackets and flashings say more about how much life is left than the slates do.
• Within two miles of the front, clear gutters twice a year instead of the usual once.
• Give the seaward elevation the hardest look. West-facing pitches take the salt and the scouring, and they wear out years ahead of the sheltered side of the same house.