Payment terms: the average improves by 1.5 days, but the worst payers get worse — €13 billion of cash tied up
The 2025 report of France's Observatoire des délais de paiement, handed over on 23 September 2026, finds customer and supplier payment terms down 1.5 days. But the gain comes from firms that were already fast; the slowest 10% are getting worse, and late payments cost SMEs and micro-businesses €13 billion in cash.
According to the Banque de France, which published the Observatory's release (24 September 2026), the share of firms paying without delay rose 2 points in 2024, for the fourth year running. But the improvement is driven by those who already paid quickly: the 10% of firms with the longest terms are deteriorating, and fewer than one large company in two meets the 60-day legal limit. At the end of 2025, the average delay in France is still 13.4 days, slightly above the European average.
For a domiciliation branch or network this shows up daily: unpaid invoices don't come from all clients but from a small group that returns every month. A reminder on a fixed schedule — polite nudge at D+1, a second message at D+7, hand-over to a person after that — is exactly the kind of repetitive task an assistant can prepare. What stays with the team: the tone, the exceptions, what to do about a client in real difficulty.
For AppH
- A regular reminder schedule, drafted by the assistant and approved by a human, stops late payments going unnoticed until month-end.
- Tracking is simple to measure: invoices chased and average collection time before and after, on the branch's own clients.
Against / the honest limit
- The report covers inter-company payment terms in general, not domiciliation branches, and a reminder does not fix a client who is truly in trouble. The link to a front desk is AppH's own reading, to be checked branch by branch.
- The assistant drafts the messages; it sends nothing without a human's approval and decides neither penalties nor suspension of service.
The Observatory's figures say something useful: the average reassures, the tail costs. Chasing early and without friction is a small discipline, but that's where days of cash are recovered. AppH proposes to equip it without removing the human hand.
Reviewed by a human at AppH