A 30-day term is a promise about when an invoice falls due, not a forecast of when the money arrives. The gap between the two is where most short-term cash surprises come from, and it is measurable: your own paid invoices tell you how each customer actually behaves. A cash forecast built on expected payment dates rather than due dates sees the gap before it opens; one built on due dates sees it on the day payroll leaves.

What Thirty Days Means Once The Invoice Has Left

Most UK business-to-business invoices carry a term of thirty days from the invoice date, and a smaller number run to sixty, or to thirty days from the end of the month. The term is a contractual due date. It is the day after which the customer is late, and the day from which you may charge statutory interest. It says nothing about the day the cash will clear, and the two are routinely weeks apart.

The statutory framework is worth knowing precisely, because it is the backstop when nothing has been agreed and the trigger for what you can charge when something has. Under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, where no payment date is agreed a business-to-business debt becomes late thirty days after the later of the supplier performing its side of the contract and the customer having notice of the amount due. Where a date has been agreed, that date governs, with one qualification: for a customer that is not a public authority, statutory interest starts running at day sixty regardless of a longer agreed term, unless the longer term is not grossly unfair to the supplier. That is not a cap on terms. A ninety-day term is enforceable; what the Act does is stop the customer benefiting from the extra thirty days interest-free unless it can justify them.

Public authorities are held to thirty days without that qualification. For contracts awarded under the Procurement Act 2023, section 68 implies a term that any sum due is paid within thirty days of the authority receiving an invoice, or the invoice's own due date if later, and section 73 carries the same term down into the sub-contracts beneath a public contract. The clock does not run while the authority considers an invoice invalid or disputes it, and it must tell you without undue delay if that is the position, which is why a public-sector invoice needs to be right first time in a way a private one can sometimes survive not being.

None of this tells you when you will be paid. It tells you when you are entitled to be paid, which is a different date, and the difference is the subject of this page.

The Gap Between The Terms You Agreed And The Day You Are Paid

The best current picture of the gap, for a business of this size, comes from the Department for Business and Trade's late payments research published in July 2025. Among businesses with ten to forty-nine employees, 42% were facing a late-payment issue at the time of the survey: 21% had both overdue invoices and customers on terms longer than sixty days, 12% had overdue invoices only, and 5% had long terms only. That definition matters, because the study counts a customer paying exactly on time on ninety-day terms as a late-payment problem. On the page's subject, the gap between terms and behaviour, it is the overdue categories that count, and they cover a third of businesses in the band. Among those the study classed as affected, the average amount sitting past terms was £52,081, and the average time spent chasing it was 138 staff hours a year.

What the study does not publish, in any size band, is how many days beyond terms invoices actually run. It asked, but it did not report the distribution. Nor does any professional body publish a benchmark for it. So the number your forecast most needs, the days-beyond-terms figure for each of your own customers, has to come from your own ledger, and the method for measuring it is in step four of the cash-gap diagnostic: paid invoices, not the ageing report, and the median and the slow tail per customer rather than a single average.

For the other side of the relationship there is now an official figure. Large companies and LLPs have reported their payment practices to the government twice a year since 2017, and in July 2026 the Department for Business and Trade published statistics from the 2025 reports for the first time: across more than eleven thousand reports, the median average time to pay was 32 days, and the median proportion of invoices paid late was 15% by number and 14% by value. Manufacturing was the slowest sector at 45 days. Those are the customers' own declarations rather than audited figures, and the reports are searchable one company at a time on gov.uk's check-when-businesses-pay-invoices service, which shows each reporter's standard and maximum terms, its average days to pay, the share of invoices it paid within thirty, sixty and more than sixty days, and whether it offers supply-chain finance. Looking a prospective large customer up before agreeing terms takes ten minutes and tells you more than the contract will.

Public-sector customers have started publishing the equivalent. Contracting authorities under the Procurement Act now publish payments compliance notices every six months, stating their average days to pay and the share of invoices paid within the statutory term, though there is not yet a national aggregate to compare an authority against.

The UK Late-Payment Position As It Stands In September 2026

Three things are in force and one is not, and the distinction has to be kept straight because the one that is not is the one making the news.

Statutory interest and fixed sums. For debts that become late between 1 July and 31 December 2026, statutory interest runs at 11.75% a year: 8 percentage points above the 3.75% Bank of England base rate in force on 30 June. The rate is fixed every six months by reference to the base rate on 30 June and 31 December, so a debt that falls late in the second half of the year keeps its rate even if the base rate moves. On top of the interest, the supplier may add a fixed sum per invoice: £40 for a debt under £1,000, £70 from £1,000 to £9,999.99, and £100 for £10,000 or more, plus reasonable recovery costs above the fixed sum. The right applies automatically to business-to-business and public-authority debts without a clause in the contract, and is displaced only where the contract itself provides a substantial remedy for late payment.

Payment practices reporting. The Reporting on Payment Practices and Performance Regulations 2017 require large companies and LLPs to publish their practices and performance twice a year. The 2024 amendment extended the regime to April 2031 and added the value of invoices paid late and the share of invoices disputed, for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2025; the 2025 amendment added retention reporting for construction contracts. This is the source of the statistics above and of the per-company lookup.

The Fair Payment Code. Launched in December 2024 in place of the Prompt Payment Code and run by the Office of the Small Business Commissioner, it is voluntary and tiered: gold for at least 95% of invoices paid within thirty days, silver for at least 95% within sixty days including 95% of small-business invoices within thirty, bronze for at least 95% within sixty. A customer's tier, or its absence, is a fair question to ask before you agree terms.

The Commercial Payments Bill, not yet law. Introduced in the House of Lords on 19 May 2026 as the government's late-payment reform, the Bill completed its Lords committee stage on 21 July, and its report stage is listed for 15 September 2026. It has not passed the Commons, has no Royal Assent and no commencement date, and the government has said the measures will not be retrospective and will come with a lead-in period. If enacted as it stands, it would cap payment terms at sixty days for business customers and thirty for public authorities with limited exemptions, make statutory interest an implied term that cannot be varied or excluded, give suppliers a fixed sum where a customer disputes an invoice late or without enough information, phase out retentions in construction, and give the Small Business Commissioner powers to adjudicate disputes and impose penalties. An earlier proposal to reduce the cap to forty-five days was dropped after consultation. None of it changes what you can charge this quarter, and a forecast should not assume behaviour it has not yet caused.

Why Expected Dates Belong In The Forecast And Due Dates Do Not

An invoice carries three dates and only one of them belongs in a cash forecast. The invoice date is when revenue is recognised. The due date is when the customer is contractually obliged to pay. The expected date is when, on the evidence, the money will reach the bank. A forecast built on invoice dates is a revenue forecast wearing the wrong label. A forecast built on due dates is a statement of your rights. Only the third is a forecast of cash.

Professional guidance says the same in its own terms. ICAEW's nine principles for cash flow processes, analysis and forecasting recommend that finance teams assign an expected date, together with a worst case and a best case, to each material receipt, with a probability of collection for outstanding debts and a note of the assumption behind each. The practical reading is that the due date is a marker for credit control, and the forecast needs a separate cash-arrival assumption per invoice.

It helps to be clear about where that assumption comes from, because "expected" can mean three different things. A promised date is what the customer has told you: the payment run it says the invoice is on. A modelled date is what the customer's history says: its average days beyond due date over the last year, applied to this invoice. An expected date is the one your finance team chooses after weighing both, and it is the only one that should sit in the forecast. A promise from a customer that has missed its last four is a modelled date in disguise.

The overdue invoice is the case that catches most forecasts out. Once an invoice passes its due date, a forecast has to put the receipt somewhere, and the default in most tools and most spreadsheets is today. That is the most optimistic date available, and every day it is wrong it overstates tomorrow's opening balance by the invoice amount. An overdue item needs a decision, not a default: re-date it from what you know, split it if a part payment has been agreed, or take it out of the forecast if the money is no longer expected and chase it separately.

A Worked Example: The Same Ten Invoices, Two Cash Positions

The figures below are illustrative. They are constructed to show the timing mechanics, not presented as a market average, and the invoices, customers and dates are invented.

Calder & Finch Ltd is a fictional engineering consultancy of twenty-eight staff on Xero, with turnover of £3.6m and thirty-day terms. On 30 September 2026 it raises its month's invoices: ten of them, £300,000 in total, all due on 30 October. Its opening cash on 30 September is £205,000 and the finance team holds a cash floor of £60,000, below which it does not want to trade without warning.

Each customer's expected date comes from that customer's paid history over the previous twelve months, applied to this invoice. Two large customers have paid, on average, twenty-seven and twenty-eight days after due date for a year; the council pays inside its thirty days; three customers are habitually a week or two late; two pay on the day.

On due dates, £300,000 arrives on 30 October. On expected dates, £74,000 has arrived by 30 October, £175,000 by 14 November, and the full £300,000 on 27 November. The median invoice here is paid on day 41, which is later than the 32-day median the largest UK payers report for themselves; that is the effect of two large customers, and a customer mix concentrated in a few slow payers is exactly what pulls a business above the published figure.

The outflows are placed on the day they leave the bank, not the day they are accrued. PAYE and National Insurance for September are paid on Thursday 22 October; net pay of £96,000 goes on Friday 23 October because the 25th falls on a Sunday; the supplier run is on the last working day of each month; the quarterly VAT payment for the quarter to 30 September is made on Friday 6 November, because the deadline of one calendar month and seven days lands on a Saturday and cleared funds have to reach HMRC by then; October's PAYE goes on Friday 20 November for the same reason.

Both versions close November at £97,000. The difference is entirely the path. On the due-date basis the balance never drops below £68,000 and the finance team sees no reason to act. On the expected-date basis the balance falls to £25,000 the day November's payroll leaves, £35,000 below the floor, and recovers only because the largest customer pays the next day. Move that one receipt a week later, well within that customer's range over the year, and the business is below its floor for eight days and cannot make the 30 November supplier run without drawing on a facility. The due-date forecast would have shown none of it until the bank balance did.

There is also a number the supplier is entitled to and will decide for itself whether to claim. Customer A paid twenty-seven days after the due date. With the contract silent on interest, statutory interest on £62,000 at 11.75% for twenty-seven days, on the standard 365-day basis, is £538.89, and the fixed sum on a debt of £10,000 or more is £100: £638.89 in total, before any recovery costs above the fixed sum. It is a small figure against a £62,000 invoice, which is the point: the entitlement exists, but the timing discipline is worth far more than the interest.

How To Turn Agreed Terms Into Forecast Cash: The Terms-To-Cash Checklist

The checklist below is this page's synthesis. It borrows its credit-control items from guidance the government and the professional bodies have published for years, credits ICAEW for the expected-date principle, and adds the forecasting steps that no published checklist we could find combines with them.

Step 1: Check the customer before you agree the terms. For a new material customer, run a credit check, and if it is a large company look up its latest payment practices report on gov.uk: standard and maximum terms, average days to pay, the share paid within thirty days, and whether it pays through a finance provider. Ask whether it holds a Fair Payment Code tier.

Step 2: Record the agreed terms per customer, not per invoice. Terms, day-count convention, invoicing cut-off and any dispute deadline live on the customer record, so every invoice inherits them and the forecast can compare behaviour against them.

Step 3: Measure days beyond terms per customer from paid invoices. Take the last twelve months of paid invoices and, for each customer, calculate the days between due date and cleared date. Record the median and the slow tail rather than the average, and refresh it quarterly.

Step 4: Set an expected date on every open invoice from that customer's history. The due date stays on the invoice for credit control; the forecast carries the expected date. Where a customer has promised a payment run, weigh the promise against the history before you move the date.

Step 5: Give every overdue invoice a decision. Re-date it from what you know, split it if a part payment is agreed, or exclude it and chase it separately. Never leave an overdue receipt on today's date by default.

Step 6: Place committed outflows on their bank dates. Payroll, PAYE and National Insurance, VAT, corporation tax, loan principal and the supplier run go on the day the money leaves, with weekend and bank-holiday rules applied, not on the day the cost is accrued.

Step 7: State a cash floor and read the forecast against it. The floor is the balance below which the business does not trade without a decision. The forecast's job is to show the first date it is crossed and by how much.

Step 8: Re-run the forecast weekly and classify every variance. A receipt that arrived later than expected is a timing variance and a re-dating problem; a receipt that will not arrive is a permanent variance and a collections or credit problem. They need different responses and should not be netted.

Step 9: Know the statutory entitlement and decide, customer by customer, whether to use it. Interest at 8 points over base from the day after the due date, the fixed sum per invoice and recovery costs above it are yours by right on business and public-authority debts. Whether to claim is a relationship decision; whether to know the number is not.

Run in that order, the checklist turns a set of contractual due dates into a forecast of cash, and it makes the weekly review a conversation about specific customers rather than about a total.

Outside The UK

The page is written to the UK position, and the statutory detail above does not travel. In the United States the federal Prompt Payment Act governs payments by federal agencies and carries its own interest rate; there is no general federal statutory-interest right on private business-to-business debts, and state rules vary, so the forecasting method applies but the entitlement section does not. In Australia, large businesses report their payment times to small suppliers under the Payment Times Reporting Scheme; in the most recent cycle the regulator reported common terms of 29 days, two-thirds of invoices paid on time and a 95th-percentile payment time of 64 days, which is the same shape of tail as the example above. New Zealand legislated a similar disclosure regime in 2023 and repealed it in March 2024 before it took effect, so no comparable private-sector measure exists there.

How Float Fits

Float is a cash flow forecasting tool for finance teams on Xero or QuickBooks Online, built around the distinction this page is about. Every invoice and bill is imported from your accounting platform with its due date, and where an expected date has been set in the accounting platform Float uses that; where it has not, the due date is used as the starting point. You can then change the expected date on any invoice or bill in Float, singly or in bulk, split an invoice into several expected payments, and record a comment on the item explaining the decision. Changes made in Float stay in Float: the connection is one-way and read-only, nothing is written back to your ledger, and a change to the due or expected date in the accounting platform overwrites the Float edit on the next sync.

Overdue items get the treatment step five describes. Float assumes by default that an overdue invoice or bill will be paid today and flags it, so the forecast is only as good as the decisions the team takes on that list: re-date, split or switch the item off.

For Xero users, Smart Expected Dates automates step four. Float measures how many days after the due date each customer typically pays and each supplier is typically paid, using the last three months of paid invoices and bills and extending to twelve, shows the top five late payers and late-paid suppliers, and applies each customer's average to new invoices as they are imported, with manual override available at any time. Smart Expected Dates is available for Xero users only; support for QuickBooks Online is coming soon.

Float syncs with your accounting platform once a day at a time you choose, with a manual sync when you need one, and does not connect to your bank, so it is a planning instrument rather than a way of finding out what cleared this morning. A cash threshold can be set on the forecast, and Float shows the date on which the balance crosses it. Scenarios let you test a slower customer or a lost one against the base forecast without touching it, with the allowance for scenario layers on each plan listed on our pricing page. Sage Intacct is on the waitlist rather than live.

The diagnostic that tells you which timing gap you have is on the companion page, why profitable businesses keep running out of cash; the weekly rhythm that keeps the expected dates current is the rolling 13-week cash flow forecast.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a due date and an expected payment date?

The due date is the day the customer is contractually obliged to pay and the day after which statutory interest can run. The expected payment date is the day the money is likely to reach the bank, based on that customer's payment history and anything it has told you. A cash forecast should carry the expected date; the due date belongs to credit control.

What are the standard payment terms for UK businesses?

Thirty days from the invoice date is the most common term in business-to-business trade, with sixty days and thirty days from the end of the month also in use, particularly with larger customers. If no term is agreed, the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 treats the debt as late thirty days after the later of delivery and the customer having notice of the amount, and public authorities are held to thirty days.

Is there a legal limit of 60 days on payment terms in the UK?

Not at present. The 1998 Act does not make a longer term void; it starts statutory interest running at day sixty for business customers unless the longer term is not grossly unfair to the supplier. The Commercial Payments Bill before Parliament in September 2026 would introduce a sixty-day maximum for business customers and thirty for public authorities, but it is not yet law and has no commencement date.

How much interest can I charge on a late invoice in 2026?

For debts becoming late between 1 July and 31 December 2026 the statutory rate is 11.75% a year, being 8 percentage points above the Bank of England base rate of 3.75% in force on 30 June 2026. You can add a fixed sum of £40, £70 or £100 depending on the size of the debt, plus reasonable recovery costs above that. The rate is fixed for each six-month period by the base rate on the preceding 30 June or 31 December.

How do I find out how quickly a large customer pays its suppliers?

Large UK companies and LLPs must publish their payment practices twice a year, and the reports are searchable on gov.uk's check-when-businesses-pay-invoices service. Each report shows standard and maximum payment terms, average days to pay, the share of invoices paid within thirty, sixty and more than sixty days, the share not paid within agreed terms, and whether supply-chain finance is offered. Checking it before agreeing terms is quicker than finding the answer in your own ledger.

How do I calculate days beyond terms for a customer?

Take the customer's paid invoices over the last twelve months and, for each, subtract the due date from the date the payment cleared. Record the median and the worst cases rather than the average, because one very late invoice moves an average more than it moves your cash. Use paid invoices rather than the ageing report, which only shows what is open today.

Should my cash flow forecast use invoice dates, due dates or expected dates?

Expected dates. Invoice dates give you a revenue forecast, due dates give you a statement of your contractual rights, and only expected dates give you a forecast of cash in the bank. ICAEW's guidance on cash flow forecasting recommends assigning an expected date, with best and worst cases, to each material receipt rather than relying on the due date.

What should I do with overdue invoices in my forecast?

Give each one a decision rather than leaving it on the default date. Re-date it from what the customer has said and what its history shows, split it if a part payment has been agreed, or remove it from the forecast and chase it separately if the money is no longer expected. Most tools, Float included, assume an overdue item is paid today until you change it, which overstates tomorrow's balance every day the assumption is wrong.

Does Float change expected dates automatically?

For Xero users, Smart Expected Dates applies each customer's average days beyond due date, measured from paid invoices, to new invoices as they are imported, and you can override any date manually. For all users, expected dates can be edited singly or in bulk in Float, invoices can be split into several expected payments, and a change made in your accounting platform overwrites the Float edit at the next sync. Support for QuickBooks Online is coming soon; the connection in both cases is one-way and read-only.

Float connects to Xero or QuickBooks Online and builds your cash forecast from expected payment dates rather than due dates, synced daily. Start a 14-day free trial with no credit card, or see pricing.