New Tide tool tackles late payments

UK business banking platform Tide is to launch an ‘invoice assistant’ in mid-May to crack down on the issue of late payments among small businesses. 

The Tide invoice assistant, which costs £10 per month (plus VAT) and is an add-on to the free invoice raising service available to all Tide members, will provide automated reminder emails for unpaid invoices automatic invoice matching and invoice protection against the risk of non-payment. 

According to its own research conducted among UK SMEs in 2019, small businesses spend 1.5 hours per day, on average, chasing late payments, while each small business has an average of £8,500 owed to them in late payments at any one time. 

Tide revealed that during testing of the automatic invoice chasing feature, it found that invoices are paid at least four days earlier when they are chased by an automatic email. 

Alastair Travis, VP of business services at Tide said: “The Tide Invoice Assistant tackles a number of pain points experienced by small businesses – most importantly, automating manual and time-consuming processes and giving reassurance that they will be paid promptly.” 

He added: “The automatic chasing feature is a particularly important addition the Tide platform, with small business owners often feeling uncomfortable chasing their clients for payment, an automated email allows a degree separation from the personal relationship and helps keep cashflow on track.” 

“The addition of the Invoice Assistance to the Tide platform demonstrates our move towards providing a fully comprehensive financial platform, offering a suite of highly connected products that help our members manage all aspects of financial admin, not just their banking needs,” said Laurence Kreiger, CEO of UK, Tide.