---
title: "Sold is not paid: an order after the sale | SalexHub"
description: "What an order passes through between the sale and the money, read from 37 published sources: retyping, late payment, wrong stock records, missed promises."
url: "https://salexhub.com/research/sold-is-not-paid"
kind: "Review"
area: "Operations"
published: "2026-10-30"
author: "SalexHub"
---

# Sold is not paid

Between the sale and the money, an order is typed again, waits to be paid, and is promised from a stock record that is often wrong. A reading of 37 published sources on each handover, and on what nobody has measured.

[Research](https://salexhub.com/research.md) · Review · [Operations](https://salexhub.com/research/operations.md) · 30 October 2026

Method: 37 published sources from 2001 to 2026, each read on its primary release and marked with who ran it and what it counted. Official statistics and peer-reviewed studies first; two vendor surveys, named as such.

The question: What does an order pass through between the sale and the money, and where do the time and the money go?

A sale closes in one place and is finished in several others. Before the money arrives, the same order becomes an invoice, a payment to match and, where goods are involved, a purchase from a supplier, a receipt and a delivery. Around 18 billion invoices are issued in the European Union every year, more than 500 a second [1], and each stands for an order that passed from one person, or one company, to the next.

We read 37 published sources for what is known about those handovers: 18 peer-reviewed studies, 13 official sources, one working paper, three studies by companies of their own data and two vendor surveys. Beside every reference we say what kind of evidence it is and what it counted. No study follows one order from the sale to the money, so the piece goes handover by handover, and says where the evidence comes from shops, from large listed firms or from another field altogether. Every number below is taken from its primary release; the selection, and what we make of it, are ours.

## Key findings

- **Most firms run an order without one shared record.** In 2025, 46.45% of EU enterprises with ten or more people used ERP software, the kind that shares information between functions. Among those with 10 to 49 people the share was 41.08% [2].
- **Nobody has counted how often an order is typed again, but the cost of typing is measured.** An invoice that arrives as a PDF by email costs its receiver EUR 7.68 to process, against EUR 8.04 on paper and EUR 2.27 as structured data [3]. In 2023, 38.68% of EU enterprises sent any invoice a machine can read [4].
- **The average invoice is paid near its date. The slow ones are the problem.** Large Australian businesses pay small suppliers in 27.2 days on average against a 29-day term, yet it takes 55 days for 95% of those invoices to be paid [5]. In the United Kingdom, large businesses paid 16% of invoices late in 2024 [6].
- **Each side says the other pays late.** In a European Commission survey, 73% of respondents said their customers pay them late, and 24% admitted to paying late themselves [7].
- **Chasing takes real hours, and two counts of them are six times apart.** A vendor survey puts it at 9.85 hours a week for each company [8]. A government-commissioned survey in the United Kingdom puts it at 86 hours a year for each business that chases at all [9].
- **Where stock records have been counted, most were wrong.** 65% of nearly 370,000 records in 37 stores of one retailer did not match the shelf [10]. A 2025 working paper on another retailer found 35.3% accurate [11].
- **A missed promise is paid for in later orders.** At one supplier, a one-point rise in the share of ordered goods it could ship went with an 11% rise in what its business customers ordered next [12].

## How many handovers does one order pass?

**Several, and no published source counts them all.** An invoice "is usually preceded by the exchange of a purchase order and various fulfilment/transport documents", in the words of a report for the European Commission [13]. A research brief from the US Federal Reserve divides the work between two trading companies into five phases: taking on a supplier, ordering and delivery, invoicing, payment, and matching the payment to the invoice [14].

The same brief names three points where one order's details may be typed again by hand. The supplier types in a purchase order that arrives in a form its system cannot import. The buyer scans or types an invoice that arrives on paper or as a PDF. The supplier then matches the payment to a remittance note that "may arrive hours or days earlier or later via a completely different channel" [14]. The brief gives no count of how often each happens. We found no peer-reviewed or official source that does.

What official statistics do count is how many firms have one system that shares an order between functions. In the European Union in 2025, 46.45% of enterprises with ten or more people used ERP software, which Eurostat defines as software "to share information between different functional areas". The share was 41.08% among enterprises of 10 to 49 people, 69.93% among those of 50 to 249, and 88.71% among those of 250 or more [2]. Fewer still exchange that information with the companies they trade with: 24.61% shared supply chain information electronically with suppliers or customers in 2023 [4].

**Figure 1. Under fifty people, most firms have no system that shares an order between functions**

EU enterprises with each kind of link, by number of people

| Measure | 10 to 49 people | 50 to 249 | 250 or more |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| ERP software, 2025 | 41.08% | 69.93% | 88.71% |
| Electronic sharing with suppliers or customers, 2023 | 21.29% | 36.88% | 59.19% |

Share of enterprises in the European Union, by persons employed. The first row is enterprises with ERP software, which shares information between functions, in 2025 [2]. The second is enterprises that share supply chain information electronically with suppliers or customers, in 2023, the latest year asked [4]. Enterprises with fewer than ten persons are not surveyed.

Two cautions belong beside these numbers. Having such software is not the same as sales, accounts and the stockroom reading one record; it is the nearest thing official statistics measure. And enterprises with fewer than ten people are not surveyed at all.

Why a handover costs time is easier to show than to count. In one manufacturing process studied from its event log, work was being done during 6.81% of the time a case spent in the process. The largest single cause of waiting, 57% of it, was that the next person was not available when the work reached them [15]. That is one process in one factory, an illustration of the mechanism and not a rate for orders in general.

## What happens when an order is typed again?

**Mistakes, at a rate measured in another field.** We found no study of error rates in typing orders or invoices. The closest measurement is from clinical research, where trained staff enter data from paper forms. A review that pooled 93 papers found errors in 0.29% of fields when the data was typed once and in 0.14% when it was typed twice and compared. When staff copied the data out of medical records, which is reading a document and not typing a form, the pooled error rate was 6.57% [16]. Reading an order out of an email and typing it into another system resembles the last of these more than the first, but nobody has measured it.

Most invoices still arrive in a form that someone has to read. In 2023, 38.68% of EU enterprises sent invoices suitable for automated processing, 72.84% sent electronic invoices that are not, such as a PDF by email, and 70.24% sent invoices on paper. A firm can do all three, so the shares overlap [4].

The difference shows in what an invoice costs the company that receives it. A study of Belgian businesses put the cost of receiving one business invoice at EUR 8.04 on paper, EUR 7.68 as a PDF by email and EUR 2.27 as structured data [3]. The PDF saves the sender a stamp. It saves the receiver almost nothing, because someone still types it in.

**Figure 2. A PDF invoice costs its receiver almost what a paper one does**

Cost of receiving one business invoice, by how it arrives

| Measure | Value |
| --- | --- |
| On paper | 8.04 EUR |
| As a PDF by email | 7.68 EUR |
| As structured data | 2.27 EUR |

Belgian private sector businesses, invoicing of 2012 to 2014. The cost is modelled from the time accounting staff said each step takes, at EUR 35.21 an hour, plus out-of-pocket costs; three annual surveys with between about 600 and 847 respondents [3]. It is not a timed observation.

Payment has its own paper. In the United States, checks fell from 32% of payments between businesses in 2015 to 13% in 2024 by number, while their total value barely moved, from USD 15.4 trillion to USD 15.0 trillion [17]. The central bank's researchers note that with a check both sides "must handle several business processes manually".

- **What one shared system changed: time** At one company followed before and after it moved to a single system, the time from order to delivery improved at once and went on improving, where it had been flat before [18].
- **What it changed: profit** Across 186 announced moves to such systems at listed firms, there was some evidence of better profitability and none of better share returns. For 80 moves to CRM software alone, there was no evidence of either [19].

## How long does an invoice wait?

**Asked, companies say weeks past the date agreed. Measured, the average is close to the date and the slow invoices are very slow.** In a credit management company's survey of 9,150 executives in 25 European countries, suppliers report an average term of 43 days for business customers and payment after 60 days. For public authorities the term is 55.9 days and payment comes after 69.8 [7, 8]. These are executives' estimates, not counted invoices.

**Figure 3. Suppliers say they are paid more than two weeks past the date agreed**

Days agreed and days it took to be paid, by who pays, as suppliers report it

| Measure | Agreed | Paid |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Business customers | 43 days | 60.3 days |
| Public authorities | 55.9 days | 69.8 days |

Averages for 2024 as the EU Payment Observatory prints them [7], drawn from a credit management company's survey of 9,150 executives in 25 European countries, carried out from November 2024 to February 2025 [8]. Executives' estimates, not counted invoices.

Two governments make large businesses report how they actually pay. In the United Kingdom, the typical large business took 32 days to pay in 2024, down from 35 in 2018, and paid 16% of its invoices late, down from 26%. In every year from 2018 to 2024, between 7% and 10% of invoices took longer than 60 days [6].

In Australia, 3,254 large businesses reported on the second half of 2025. They paid small suppliers in 27.2 days on average against an agreed 29, and 68.5% of invoices were paid within terms. But 24.3% of invoices took 31 to 60 days and 5.9% took longer, and it took 55 days for 95% of invoices to be paid. The regulator's own summary: "It is taking almost double the average agreed payment term for the vast majority of small business invoices to be paid" [5].

**Figure 4. Of a hundred invoices to small suppliers, thirty wait more than thirty days**

Invoices from small suppliers, by how long large businesses took to pay

| Measure | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Paid within 30 days | 69.8% |
| Paid in 31 to 60 days | 24.3% |
| Paid after more than 60 days | 5.9% |

Each square is one invoice in a hundred. Reports filed by 3,254 large Australian businesses on how they paid small business suppliers from 1 July to 31 December 2025 [5]. The average agreed term was 29 days. The payers report on themselves.

The same wait can be read from the seller's side. In the invoices that small businesses issue through one accounting software company, customers took 29.5 days to pay in the United Kingdom in the three months to September 2026 and paid 8.0 days late on average. In the United States the figures were 29.7 and 8.6 days, in Australia 24.3 and 6.9 [20]. A longer series from another accounting software company, 58 million invoices from 110,000 small UK businesses, shows the wait falling from 81 days in 2010 to about 36 in 2020 and 2021, with the share paid after the due date going from about 47% to 40% [21].

In a US central bank survey of small employer firms, 39% named slow-paying customers as a difficulty with payments, second only to processing fees [22].

## Why is an invoice paid late?

**Each side points at the other, and some of the delay is paperwork.** In a European Commission survey with 3,500 responses, 73% said their customers pay them late, and 24% admitted to paying late themselves [7]. Both cannot describe the same invoices.

**Figure 5. Three in four say they are paid late. One in four says it pays late**

Share of respondents who say...

| Measure | Value |
| --- | --- |
| their customers pay them late | 73% |
| they pay late themselves | 24% |

A European Commission survey on late payment with 3,500 responses, about a quarter of them from business associations, reported in 2025 [7]. Taking part was voluntary, and the report says the sample is not representative.

- **The customer is short of cash** In a trade credit insurer's survey of 210 UK firms, 51% named their customers' cash flow as a reason for late payment [23].
- **The invoice is stuck inside the customer** In the same survey, 23% named internal approval delays, 26% banking delays and 17% a complex payment process [23]. In Austria, 43% of companies named administrative inefficiency as a driver of late payment between businesses in 2024 [7].
- **Paying late is cheaper than borrowing** In the UK government's research, 18% of businesses put being paid late down to customers using it as interest-free finance [6].
- **The seller agreed to it** 55% of European companies say they accept longer payment terms than they are comfortable with, so as not to damage the relationship with a client [24].

Lateness also travels. In 2024, 31% of European companies said they delay their own payments because they are paid late themselves [7].

A cleaner invoice removes the paperwork part and not the rest. Missing details or a wrong invoice number can stop a payment from being matched to its invoice without a person [14]. But a report for the European Commission concludes that structured invoices have "great potential to improve payment efficiency" and do not by themselves change payment behaviour: a buyer who never meant to pay on time will not start [13]. No source we found measures how many days an invoice error or a dispute adds.

## What does the wait cost?

**Hours first. How many depends on who counted.** The credit management company's survey puts the time spent chasing late payments at 9.85 hours a week for each company, down from 10.15 the year before [8]. The official EU report on payments repeats that figure [7]. A survey of 1,455 businesses for the UK government found that 22% spend staff time chasing late payments, on average 86 hours a year for each business affected, 133 million hours in all [9]. Eighty-six hours a year is under two hours a week. The first figure comes from a company that sells collection services, and the second counts only businesses that said they chase.

**Figure 6. Two counts of the time spent chasing payment, six times apart**

Hours a week spent chasing late payments, for each company

| Measure | Value |
| --- | --- |
| A credit management company's survey, 25 European countries | 9.85 h |
| A government-commissioned survey, United Kingdom | 1.65 h |

The first is the average that 9,150 executives gave, surveyed from November 2024 to February 2025 [8]. The second is our division of the source's 86 hours a year by 52 weeks: the average for a business affected by late payment, among the 22% of 1,455 UK businesses that said they spend staff time chasing, surveyed in January and February 2025 [9].

The same UK research puts the whole cost of late payment at almost GBP 11 billion a year: GBP 4.60 billion in recovering unpaid invoices, GBP 3.21 billion in business closures, GBP 1.71 billion in investment not made and GBP 1.21 billion in raising other finance [6]. Its estimate of 14,000 closures a year, 38 a day, rests on a matched sample of 300 firms [9]. These are modelled estimates, and the closure figure is the least certain of them.

Peer-reviewed studies of what the wait does to a firm are fewer and firmer.

- **Shorter terms, fewer failures** When a French reform capped the payment terms trucking firms could be made to give, their probability of default fell by 25%, and more small firms entered the trade [25].
- **Faster payment, more hiring** When the US government began paying its small contractors 15 days sooner, their payroll rose by 10 cents for each dollar paid early. The published study adds that across a whole local labour market the gain was close to zero where labour was already scarce [26].
- **A customer's failure spreads** In Sweden, a supplier whose customer went bankrupt owing it money saw its own annual risk of failure rise by around 2 percentage points, from an average of 2% [27].
- **Late payment alone, a limited effect** The French central bank found that late customer payments raise a company's probability of default by 25%, and by 40% when more than a month late. It calls the effect "relatively limited": 8 in 100 failing companies were exposed to it, and weak finances raised the probability at least four times [28].

How long a firm can wait depends on what it holds. In the accounts of 597,000 small US businesses at one bank, the median held enough cash to cover 27 days of its outgoings [29]. The invoices above took about 30 days to be paid.

## How often is the stock record wrong?

**Where it has been counted, more often than it is right.** A promise to a customer is made from a record of what is in stock, and the record can be wrong. In the largest published count, researchers compared nearly 370,000 stock records in 37 stores of one retailer with what was on the shelves and found 65% of them inaccurate [10]. A working paper from 2025 on 11 stores of a UK grocer found almost the same: 35.3% of records matched the shelf, 39.4% showed more than was there and 25.3% showed less [11].

**Figure 7. Of a hundred stock records, thirty-five matched the shelf**

Stock records in 11 stores of one grocer, against a count of the shelf

| Measure | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Record matches the shelf | 35.3% |
| Record shows less than is there | 25.3% |
| Record shows more than is there | 39.4% |

Each square is one record in a hundred. About 150,000 stock counts of some 24,000 products in 11 stores of a UK grocery retailer; a working paper, not yet peer-reviewed [11]. A peer-reviewed count at a US retailer in 2008 found 65% of nearly 370,000 records inaccurate [10].

A record that shows more than the shelf holds is the costly kind, because nothing reorders an item the system believes is there. When the grocer's stores were counted and their records corrected, sales rose by about 11% across the store, all of it on items whose record had shown more than was there [11]. An earlier study of two retailers put the cost of wrong records and misplaced goods at more than 10% of profit, and found that performance differed widely between stores of one chain using the same software [30]. In field experiments at another retailer, tracking goods by radio tag cut inaccuracy by about 26% [31].

All of that is from shops. For companies that sell to other companies we found no count of how many records are wrong. The nearest is a study of a parts distribution centre and an engineering wholesaler, where orders are accepted on the system's record alone. It describes a company that promises a sale on the strength of the record and goes on "to find out that it is unable to deliver when the shipment is due". The two companies logged 1,083 and 1,532 corrections to stock over 25 months [32].

## What does a missed promise cost?

**Later orders.** The clearest evidence between businesses is a field experiment at one fashion supplier. A rise of one percentage point in the share of ordered goods it could ship, measured over the year before, went with an 11% rise in what its retailer customers ordered next [12].

Promising more than can be delivered works once. An online retailer showed some customers a faster delivery promise without changing how fast it delivered. Sales and profit rose, and so did returns, and fewer of those customers came back [33]. At another online retailer, previously loyal customers ordered less often and in smaller amounts after an order arrived late [34].

When a delivery fails, the cause is more often inside the company than at its supplier. Of 827 supply disruptions announced by listed firms between 1989 and 2000, the firm's own failure was named as responsible in 278, a supplier in 120 and a customer in 106 [35]. The reasons named most often were parts shortages, problems starting up a new product, customers changing their orders and production problems. In a related sample of 885 such failures, the firms reported 6.92% lower sales growth and 10.66% higher growth in costs than comparable firms [36]. These are large listed companies whose failures were serious enough to announce.

**Figure 8. A failed delivery starts inside the company more often than at its supplier**

Supply disruptions announced by listed firms, 1989 to 2000, by who was responsible

| Measure | Value |
| --- | --- |
| The firm itself | 278 |
| A supplier | 120 |
| A customer | 106 |

Number of announcements, among 827 made by firms listed on US stock exchanges; the rest named nobody. Read in the authors' working-paper version of the published study [35].

Why sales and operations fall out of step has been studied closely in one company. Sales, finance and operations each plan their own part, "which results in conflicts over expectations, preferences, and priorities". The study's conclusion is that agreeing on what will actually be done can matter more than the quality of the information each side holds [37].

## What this does not show

- **No study follows one order.** Each handover was studied by different people, in different countries, industries and decades. Set side by side they describe a path. They do not measure it.
- **The retyping is not counted.** We found no source that counts how many times an order is typed again, and none that measures typing errors in orders or invoices. The error rates here come from clinical research data.
- **The stock evidence is from shops.** Every share of wrong records is from retail stores. For companies that sell to other companies there are two case studies and no share.
- **The delivery evidence is from a few companies.** One fashion supplier, two online retailers, and large listed firms between 1989 and 2000. None is an ordinary late delivery at an ordinary company.
- **The best payment data covers large payers.** The measured figures are large businesses reporting on themselves in two countries, and the customers of two accounting software companies. The European averages are executives' estimates in a vendor's survey.
- **The costs are estimates.** GBP 11 billion a year and 38 closures a day come from a model, the closures from a matched sample of 300 firms.
- **Three numbers are from working-paper versions.** For the studies of faster payment, of customer failure and of supply disruptions, we read the figures in the authors' earlier versions; the published texts may differ slightly.
- **The smallest firms are missing.** The EU statistics cover enterprises with ten or more people.
- **Two sources are vendor surveys, and we sell software.** Both come from companies that sell credit services to the firms they asked. We sell business software. Read their numbers, and our reading of all of them, with that in mind.

## What we build from this

Each need below is one the evidence names. Beside it is what SalexHub does about it today, with the page that shows it. Where we have nothing to show, the row says so.

| The need | What SalexHub does today | Where to see it |
| --- | --- | --- |
| An order that is not typed again | The Agent drafts the invoice from the quote your customer accepted, with the same lines and total, naming its quote. Invoicing in parts, the quote counts what is left. You issue it. | [Invoice an accepted quote](https://salexhub.com/use-cases/invoice-an-accepted-quote.md) |
| A promise made from what is really there | Confirming a customer's order holds the goods for it, so two orders cannot promise the same stock. A deal shows which of its lines are in stock and which have to be bought. | [Hold stock for a customer's order](https://salexhub.com/use-cases/hold-stock-for-an-order.md) |
| To know the day an invoice goes past due | A Mini, a small agent with one job, watches the sent invoices and reports the day one goes past due, with what is owed and what happened last on the account. | [Hear the day an invoice goes past due](https://salexhub.com/use-cases/past-due-watch.md) |
| Fewer hours chasing | Ask who is late paying. The Agent finds the invoices past their due date and writes one reminder for each, from your own address. You edit and send. | [Chase late payments](https://salexhub.com/use-cases/chase-late-payments.md) |
| A payment matched to its invoices | Tell the Agent what arrived. It splits the payment across the invoices it pays, and each reads Paid or Partially paid. Recording money always waits for your yes. | [Match one payment to its invoices](https://salexhub.com/use-cases/match-a-payment.md) |
| A stock record with its reasons | Every stock figure opens to the movements behind it, each with the document that made it. A count is entered as an adjustment with its reason, and an Owner or Admin posts it. | [Correct stock after a count](https://salexhub.com/use-cases/correct-stock.md) |
| A late supplier, known the same morning | A Mini checks each weekday morning which purchase orders were due the day before and have not arrived, and proposes a call to the supplier. | [Catch a late supplier delivery](https://salexhub.com/use-cases/late-supplier-delivery.md) |
| Invoices a machine can read, and payment from the invoice | SalexHub does not send invoices through an e-invoicing network, and a customer cannot pay an invoice online. | Nothing to show yet |
| Proof in numbers | We have not measured what any of this saves in hours or in days to payment. Until we do, we make no claim about it. | Nothing to show yet |

## References

1. European Commission. [Proposal for a Regulation on combating late payment in commercial transactions](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52023PC0533). COM(2023) 533 final, explanatory memorandum, 12 September 2023. Official source. The European Union; the Commission's own count of invoices issued in a year.
2. Eurostat. [Integration of internal processes by size class of enterprise](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/isoc_eb_iip/default/table). Dataset isoc_eb_iip, survey on ICT usage and e-commerce in enterprises, 2025 data, updated 27 February 2026. Official source. EU enterprises with 10 or more persons employed, all activities except agriculture, mining and the financial sector.
3. Poel, Marneffe and Vanlaer. [Assessing the electronic invoicing potential for private sector firms in Belgium](https://efactuur.belgium.be/sites/default/files/1577-8517-v16_1.pdf). The International Journal of Digital Accounting Research, 16, pages 1 to 34, 2016. Peer-reviewed study. Three annual surveys of Belgian private sector businesses on their invoicing of 2012 to 2014, the largest with 847 respondents.
4. Eurostat. [Integration with customers and suppliers, supply chain management by size class of enterprise](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/isoc_eb_ics/default/table). Dataset isoc_eb_ics, survey on ICT usage and e-commerce in enterprises, 2023 data, updated 17 July 2025. Official source. EU enterprises with 10 or more persons employed, all activities except agriculture, mining and the financial sector.
5. Payment Times Reporting Regulator, Australia. [Regulator's update, August 2026](https://paymenttimes.gov.au/publications/publication/regulators-update-august-2026). Commonwealth of Australia, 24 August 2026. Official source. 3,254 large businesses reporting how they paid small business suppliers from 1 July to 31 December 2025.
6. UK Department for Business and Trade. [Late Payments: Primary Legislation. Final stage impact assessment](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c054b11263ce46c3690c7c/prompt-payments-primary-legislation-impact-assessment.pdf). Impact assessment DBT-054-25-DIME, March 2026. Official source. The payment reports large UK businesses must file, 2018 to 2024, as medians across businesses; and the department's research on costs.
7. EU Payment Observatory. [Annual Report 2025](https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/document/download/db1722d8-9cad-40fd-9ad4-f56a907317fa_en?filename=AnnualReport2025_FinalC.pdf). Prepared for the European Commission by CEPS and EY; Publications Office of the European Union, December 2025. Official source. Companies in the EU in 2024. It re-reads an official survey of about 11,000 firms, a vendor's survey of about 9,000 and a Commission survey with 3,500 responses.
8. Intrum. [European Payment Report 2025](https://www.intrum.com/media/caqod3qr/intrum-epr-2025.pdf). Intrum, April 2025. Vendor survey. 9,150 executives in 25 European countries, surveyed from 14 November 2024 to 12 February 2025; 70% from companies with fewer than 250 employees.
9. London Economics, for the UK Department for Business and Trade. [Late Payments Research: Estimating the total economic cost of late payments and their impact on the UK economy](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/late-payments-research-impact-on-the-uk-economy). Department for Business and Trade and the Office of the Small Business Commissioner, July 2025. Official source. 1,455 UK businesses of all sizes, surveyed from 15 January to 7 February 2025; the closure estimate rests on a matched sample of 300 firms, 2015 to 2019.
10. DeHoratius and Raman. [Inventory Record Inaccuracy: An Empirical Analysis](https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1070.0789). Management Science, 54(4), pages 627 to 641, April 2008. Peer-reviewed study. Nearly 370,000 stock records in 37 stores of one US retailer, compared with a count of the shelves.
11. Rekik, Oliva, Glock and Syntetos. [Inventory record inaccuracy in grocery retailing: Impact of promotions and product perishability, and targeted effect of audits](https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.05357). arXiv:2506.05357, 2025, revised 2026. Working paper. About 150,000 stock counts of some 24,000 products in 11 stores of a UK grocery retailer.
12. Craig, DeHoratius and Raman. [The Impact of Supplier Inventory Service Level on Retailer Demand](https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2016.0582). Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 18(4), pages 461 to 474, October 2016. Peer-reviewed study. A field experiment at one fashion supplier and the orders of its retailer customers.
13. EU Payment Observatory. [How electronic invoicing helps reduce late payments in commercial transactions](https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/document/download/8970b069-89d5-4153-a417-fcd908988ca7_en?filename=E-invoicing%20Thematic%20Report_Final_N.pdf). 3rd Thematic Report, prepared for the European Commission by CEPS and EY; Publications Office of the European Union, July 2024. Official source. Desk research, data analysis and interviews. The report reflects the views of its authors.
14. Albers, Baird, Hayashi, Isaacson and Routh. [B2B Payments: Business Processing and Challenges to Achieving Straight-Through Processing](https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/payments-research-brief/2026/prb-20260925-b2b-payments-part-two). Payments Research Brief, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, 25 September 2026. Official source. A description of how US businesses order, invoice, pay and reconcile. It gives no counts.
15. Lashkevich, Milani, Chapela-Campa, Suvorau and Dumas. [Why Am I Waiting? Data-Driven Analysis of Waiting Times in Business Processes](https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.01392). Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE 2023), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 174 to 190, 2023. Peer-reviewed study. The event log of one manufacturing process: 225 cases, 4,503 pieces of work, 46 people and machines. Numbers read in the authors' preprint.
16. Garza, Williams, Ounpraseuth, Hu, Lee, Snowden, Walden, Simon, Devlin, Young and Zozus. [Error rates of data processing methods in clinical research: A systematic review and meta-analysis of manuscripts identified through PubMed](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2024.105749). International Journal of Medical Informatics, 195, 105749, March 2025. Peer-reviewed study. 93 papers published from 1978 to 2008 on how accurately data is entered in clinical trials.
17. Albers, Baird, Hayashi, Isaacson and Routh. [B2B Payments: A Gradual Shift from Checks to Electronic Payment Methods](https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/payments-research-brief/2026/prb-20260921-b2b-payments). Payments Research Brief, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, 21 September 2026. Official source. The authors' estimates of payments between US businesses, 2015 to 2024, from the Federal Reserve Payments Study and other counts.
18. Cotteleer and Bendoly. [Order Lead-Time Improvement following Enterprise Information Technology Implementation: An Empirical Study](https://doi.org/10.2307/25148743). MIS Quarterly, 30(3), pages 643 to 660, September 2006. Peer-reviewed study. One company, followed before and after it put in a single system. Read in the abstract, which gives no figures.
19. Hendricks, Singhal and Stratman. [The impact of enterprise systems on corporate performance: A study of ERP, SCM, and CRM system implementations](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jom.2006.02.002). Journal of Operations Management, 25(1), pages 65 to 82, January 2007. Peer-reviewed study. Announcements by listed firms: 186 of ERP systems, 140 of supply chain systems and 80 of CRM systems.
20. Xero. [Xero Small Business Insights: United Kingdom, United States and Australia, September quarter 2026](https://www.xero.com/uk/resources/small-business-insights/latest-united-kingdom/). Xero Small Business Insights, 29 October 2026. Company research. Invoices that small businesses issued through the company's software and that were paid in the quarter. The number of firms is not given.
21. Sage and Smart Data Foundry. [Shedding light on late payments for UK small and micro businesses](https://www.sage.com/en-gb/-/media/files/company/documents/pdf/sustainability-and-society/shedding-light-on-late-payments-for-uk-small-micro-businesses-ebook-november-2022.pdf). Sage, with Smart Data Foundry at the University of Edinburgh, November 2022. Company research. 58 million sales invoices from 110,000 small UK businesses using the company's software, 2010 to 2021.
22. Federal Reserve Banks. [2024 Report on Payments: Findings from the 2023 Small Business Credit Survey](https://www.fedsmallbusiness.org/-/media/project/clevelandfedtenant/fsbsite/reports/2024/2024-report-on-payments_sbcs.pdf). Small Business Credit Survey, December 2024. Official source. 4,858 US employer firms with 1 to 499 employees that answered the question, surveyed from September to November 2023.
23. Atradius. [Payment Practices Barometer: Survey results for United Kingdom, 2026](https://atradius.de/dam/jcr:7b8691f4-8139-448c-94e4-c8657bcedf27/payment-practices-barometer-western-europe-2026-united-kingdom-en.pdf). Atradius, April 2026. Vendor survey. 210 UK companies of all sizes, interviewed online between the end of the first quarter and the start of the second quarter of 2026.
24. EU Payment Observatory. [Annual Report 2024](https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/document/download/d3f9aa5a-c33e-40d0-a867-5c0198ee7a75_en?filename=EU%20Payment%20Observatory_Annual%20Report%202024_EA-01-24-061-EN-C.pdf). Prepared for the European Commission; Publications Office of the European Union, December 2024. Official source. Companies in the EU in 2023, re-read from official and vendor surveys.
25. Barrot. [Trade Credit and Industry Dynamics: Evidence from Trucking Firms](https://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.12371). The Journal of Finance, 71(5), pages 1975 to 2016, October 2016. Peer-reviewed study. French trucking firms before and after a reform that capped the payment terms they give.
26. Barrot and Nanda. [The Employment Effects of Faster Payment: Evidence from the Federal Quickpay Reform](https://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.12955). The Journal of Finance, 75(6), pages 3139 to 3173, December 2020. Peer-reviewed study. Small business contractors of the US government after a 2011 reform. The 10 cents figure is from the authors' working paper, NBER Working Paper 22420.
27. Jacobson and von Schedvin. [Trade Credit and the Propagation of Corporate Failure: An Empirical Analysis](https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA12148). Econometrica, 83(4), pages 1315 to 1371, July 2015. Peer-reviewed study. Swedish companies and what they were owed when a customer went bankrupt. Figures read in the authors' working paper, Sveriges Riksbank Working Paper 263.
28. Dietsch and Gonzalez. [Do late customer payments impact companies' probability of default?](https://publications.banque-france.fr/sites/default/files/medias/documents/819416_bdf227-8_late_customer_payment_vfinale.pdf). Bulletin de la Banque de France, 227/8, January and February 2020. Official source. French non-financial companies, 2014 to 2017, from balance sheet data.
29. Farrell and Wheat, JPMorgan Chase Institute. [Cash is King: Flows, Balances, and Buffer Days. Evidence from 600,000 Small Businesses](https://www.jpmorganchase.com/content/dam/jpmc/jpmorgan-chase-and-co/institute/pdf/jpmc-institute-small-business-report.pdf). JPMorgan Chase Institute, September 2016. Company research. 597,000 small US businesses with accounts at the bank, February to October 2015.
30. Raman, DeHoratius and Ton. [Execution: The Missing Link in Retail Operations](https://cmr.berkeley.edu/2001/05/43-3-execution-the-missing-link-in-retail-operations/). California Management Review, 43(3), pages 136 to 152, Spring 2001. Peer-reviewed study. Two retailers, one studied for wrong stock records and one for misplaced goods. Read in the abstract.
31. Hardgrave, Aloysius and Goyal. [RFID-Enabled Visibility and Retail Inventory Record Inaccuracy: Experiments in the Field](https://doi.org/10.1111/poms.12010). Production and Operations Management, 22(4), pages 843 to 856, July 2013. Peer-reviewed study. Two field experiments at one retailer: daily counts in 13 stores over 23 weeks, then five product categories in 62 stores.
32. Rekik, Syntetos and Glock. [Modeling (and Learning from) Inventory Inaccuracies in E-retailing/B2B Contexts](https://doi.org/10.1111/deci.12367). Decision Sciences, 50(6), pages 1184 to 1223, December 2019. Peer-reviewed study. Two companies that sell to other companies, a parts distribution centre and an engineering wholesaler, 25 months of data each. Read in the accepted manuscript.
33. Cui, Lu, Sun and Golden. [Sooner or Later? Promising Delivery Speed in Online Retail](https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2021.0174). Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 26(1), pages 233 to 251, January 2024. Peer-reviewed study. A field experiment at one US online retailer: the promised delivery time was changed and the real one was not. Read in the abstract, which gives no figures.
34. Rao, Griffis and Goldsby. [Failure to deliver? Linking online order fulfillment glitches with future purchase behavior](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jom.2011.04.001). Journal of Operations Management, 29(7-8), pages 692 to 703, November 2011. Peer-reviewed study. The order records of one online retailer of printed material, for previously loyal customers. Read in the abstract, which gives no figures.
35. Hendricks and Singhal. [An Empirical Analysis of the Effect of Supply Chain Disruptions on Long-Run Stock Price Performance and Equity Risk of the Firm](https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1937-5956.2005.tb00008.x). Production and Operations Management, 14(1), pages 35 to 52, March 2005. Peer-reviewed study. 827 supply disruptions announced by firms listed on US stock exchanges, 1989 to 2000. The counts by cause were read in the authors' working-paper version.
36. Hendricks and Singhal. [Association Between Supply Chain Glitches and Operating Performance](https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1040.0353). Management Science, 51(5), pages 695 to 711, May 2005. Peer-reviewed study. 885 supply failures announced by listed firms, each compared with firms of similar size and industry.
37. Oliva and Watson. [Cross-functional alignment in supply chain planning: A case study of sales and operations planning](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jom.2010.11.012). Journal of Operations Management, 29(5), pages 434 to 448, July 2011. Peer-reviewed study. A case study of planning between sales and operations at one company. No statistics.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. It comes from the UK Department for Business and Trade's impact assessment of March 2026 and the Late Payments Research it published in July 2025, © Crown copyright 2026 and 2025. The licence: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Regulator's update, August 2026, of the Payment Times Reporting Regulator: © Commonwealth of Australia 2026, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Based on Commonwealth of Australia data: the figure drawn from it is our own.

The European Commission's proposal COM(2023) 533 and the EU Payment Observatory's reports of 2024 and 2025: © European Union, 2023 to 2025. Reused with the source acknowledged, under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU.

Eurostat data (isoc_eb_iip, isoc_eb_ics): © European Union. Source: Eurostat. The values are printed as published, in a figure of our own.

No source listed here took part in this piece, and none endorses SalexHub or its products.

### Kinds of evidence in this piece

- Peer-reviewed study (18): Published in a journal after review by other researchers.
- Official source (13): Statistics or rules published by a public authority.
- Working paper (1): Research released before peer review.
- Company research (3): A company's study of its own data.
- Vendor survey (2): A survey run or paid for by a company that sells to the people it asked.

## Changes

- 30 October 2026: First published.

## Cite this piece

SalexHub (2026). Sold is not paid. https://salexhub.com/research/sold-is-not-paid

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