TREDS: A CASH FLOW SOLUTION FOR MSMES

MSMEs have been facing the problem of delayed realization of their bills and receivables since long, particularly from large corporate buyers and government organizations.

- Suraj Kumar Shoundik

MSMEs often suffered greatly from delayed payments from customers. Since small businesses require regular cash flow to stay operational, deferred payments, usually from large corporate customers, seriously threaten their operations.

Currently, the payment recovery cycle falls above 90 days for a majority of MSMEs and payment delays became a huge problem for business continuity of such enterprises.

The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act, 2006, has made provisions to mitigate the problem of delayed payment, whereby any buyer who fails to make payment to MSMEs, as per mutually agreed terms or a maximum of 45 days, would be liable to pay monthly compounded interest at three times the bank rate notified by RBI.

At the time of the enactment of the MSMED Act in 2006, it was felt that the aforementioned provisions would prevent buyers of MSMEs' products from committing payment defaults, but in reality very few cases were brought to the facilitation centers as MSMEs feared losing out on business.

Government has also launched MSME SAMADHAN Portal (https://samadhaan.msme.gov.in/) which is a delay payment monitoring system and aggrieved MSME can file their case in the site for delayed payment from the corporate buyers including government departments, PSU etc.

But again the poor MSMEs fears to report the defaults in order to not lose out on a business relationship from the big players.