American small and midsize businesses paid more bills on time in last year's fourth quarter than the previous quarter but still lagged their year-earlier performance, Dun & Bradstreet Corp. reports.
"Despite the recent glowing reports of economic improvement, many businesses are still under tremendous financial strains," said David T. Kresge, vice president of the company's information services subsidiary.Dun & Bradstreet's Payment Performance Index, a barometer of timely bill paying, showed a modest increase in the final three months of 1993 after a decline through the first nine months of the year. But the index still showed that fewer businesses were paying their bills on time in the fourth quarter than during the same period in 1992.
The index is based on a computer analysis of bill-paying records from 1 million companies, as reported by their suppliers to Dun & Bradstreet, a leading provider of business information.
The results showed that all industry groups except retail improved during the fourth qaurter. Kresge attributed retailing's weakness to a slower-than-expected holiday selling season. He also said some merchants may have delayed paying bills so they would have enough money to replenish inventories that were depleted in the third quarter of 1993.
Regionally, business bill-paying was slowest in the Pacific Coast and oil-patch states and fastest in the Rocky Mountain states. There were also more modest improvements among businesses in the South Atlantic and New England.