Gerri Detweiler, AllBusiness.com
Days Beyond Terms (DBT) is an important business credit term that describes how long it takes a business to pay its bills, past the due date. According to Experian’s November 2009 monthly Business Benchmark Report, the national average DBT was 5.16 days. This number has increased by 4 percent, indicating that overall payment behavior is continuing to slow. The health services industry has the best average DBT at 4.02, while (not surprisingly) construction has shown the worst payment performance, coming in at an average of 9.09 DBT.
Experian’s report also provides a glimmer of improvement, though. Businesses with 100 to 1,000 employees began showing improvement in overall dollars delinquent, indicating there may be some stability in that important business segment. Businesses with no employees (or nonemployer firms) continue to perform better than most of their counterparts, with the exception of dollars delinquent over 90 days.
Separately, Cortera reported that during 2008, a sample of key members of the U.S. supply chain (manufacturing, retail and wholesale) from their database showed a 39% jump in average Days Beyond Terms (DBT). Again, though, signs of recovery may be starting to appear. According to a December 14, 2009 blog post by Cortera’s Alex Cote:
“After witnessing a growing gap between the payment habits of large and small businesses – as recently as a month ago small businesses payments languished at a 38 percent higher days beyond terms (DBT) than big businesses, who had since returned to pre-recession norms – November data show a remarkable improvement for Main Street shops.”
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