Home topics news Telstra office, Canberra News News Telstra and Rio Tinto move to 20 day payment terms for small businesses Loren Webb February 17, 2020 Only a few big businesses, such as Telstra and Rio Tinto, have done ‘the right thing’ according to Australian Small Business Ombudsman Kate Carnell, in terms of addressing late payments. Late payments is a huge problem for the Australian small business community, with a Xero report last June (2019) citing a loss of $7 billion per year to small business caused by consequential cashflow issues. Xero Managing Director, Trent Innes, called on big business and government ‘to prioritise this issue’ after the report was released, but it seems that this hasn’t been the case. In September 2019, at Xerocon Brisbane, we interviewed Trent Innes regarding the biggest challenges to small businesses and the mistakes they are making. He answered with “payment times” and delved into the economic impact of this. Mr Innes said,“At any one time there is around $115million outstanding between small business and big business that’s overdue.” He added, “There’s a lot of things small businesses can do to help themselves in this. One is to bring payment terms down, so bring them right down – with less flexibility.” Trent Innes, Managing Director, Xero Australia However, is this problem truly lying with small business, or is big business to blame? Or more likely, is it a combination of both? Kate Carnell, the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFEO), believes responsibility