What If One of Your Most Important KPIs Is Missing?

Revenue.

Profit margin.

Customer acquisition cost.

Conversion rate.

Debtor days.

Businesses measure almost everything.

But there is one question that often receives surprisingly little attention:

How do the businesses we work with actually pay?

A £100,000 sales pipeline might look impressive. But if £40,000 of those invoices regularly arrive late, the headline revenue figure does not tell you the full story.

A new £50,000 contract might look like growth. But if the customer has deteriorating creditworthiness, a history of paying suppliers late or regularly disputes invoices, that contract potentially introduces risk alongside revenue.

That is why modern businesses should start thinking differently about payment behaviour.

At Will They Pay, our view is simple:

Transparency should become part of the way businesses measure commercial health.

Not instead of traditional financial KPIs.

Alongside them.

Because knowing how much business you are winning matters.

Knowing who you are winning it from, whether they can pay and how they actually treat suppliers matters too.

1. Traditional KPIs Only Tell Part of the Story

A KPI, or key performance indicator, helps a business understand whether it is moving in the right direction.

Finance teams commonly monitor measures such as:

• revenue
• gross margin
• net profit
• cash reserves
• accounts receivable
• debtor days
• overdue invoices
• bad debt
• cash conversion

These measurements are important.

But many of them tell you what has already happened.

If debtor days suddenly increase, for example, the payment problem already exists.

If bad debt appears on your accounts, the damage has already occurred.

If an invoice reaches 90 days overdue, you are already financing somebody else's business.

The opportunity is to move some of that thinking further upstream.

Instead of simply asking:

"How much are we owed?"

Businesses should also ask:

"What did we know about this customer before we extended them credit?"

That is where payment transparency becomes valuable.

2. Turn Payment Behaviour Into a Business KPI

Imagine opening your monthly management report and seeing:

Sales: £180,000
Gross margin: 31%
Invoices paid within terms: 87%
Average days to payment: 34
New customers credit checked: 100%
Customers reviewed for payment behaviour: 100%
High-risk exposure: £21,500
Overdue invoices: £14,200

Suddenly, management sees something very different.

It is no longer looking only at how much business has been won.

It can see the quality and potential risk of that revenue too.

That creates a much healthier conversation between:

Sales + Finance + Credit Control + Management.

And that matters because a sale is not quite the same thing as cash in the bank.

3. Revenue Is Exciting. Collectable Revenue Is Better.

Imagine two companies.

Company A

Generates £1 million in annual sales but regularly experiences:

• late payments
• disputes
• heavy credit-control workloads
• customers exceeding agreed terms
• bad debt

Company B

Generates the same £1 million but has:

• stronger customer vetting
• consistent credit checking
• clearer payment terms
• customers with positive payment histories
• fewer overdue invoices

Their turnover might be identical.

Their commercial experience could be completely different.

Company B potentially has greater predictability, less administrative pressure and better visibility over future cash flow.

This is the hidden reason payment behaviour deserves management attention.

It helps put revenue into context.

Our article on The Hidden ROI of Knowing Who Pays On Time explores this idea further, alongside the wider resources available through the Will They Pay homepage.

4. Credit Checks Should Be Part of the KPI

Payment transparency should never mean relying on reviews alone.

A strong commercial due-diligence process combines different information.

One of the most important components is a business credit report.

Credit information can help businesses investigate factors that may indicate financial risk before agreeing to extend credit.

Depending on the information available, this can include areas such as company information, financial indicators and credit-risk information.

Official company information can also be checked through Companies House.

The principle is straightforward:

Check before you commit.

Not after the first invoice becomes overdue.

Not when emails stop being answered.

Not when your finance team starts chasing.

Before.

5. Credit Data Answers One Question. Payment Behaviour Answers Another.

This distinction is fundamental to Will They Pay.

A credit report and a B2B payment review are not competing tools.

They provide different forms of insight.

A credit check can help you understand:

"What does the available financial and credit information tell me about this business?"

Payment experiences can help you understand:

"What have other businesses experienced when actually dealing with them?"

Put the two together and your due diligence becomes considerably richer.

A company might have reassuring financial information but still have suppliers reporting frustrating payment experiences.

Conversely, another business might be smaller or have a thinner credit profile while its suppliers consistently report excellent communication and prompt payment.

Neither piece of information should automatically make the decision for you.

They give you evidence with which to make your own commercial decision.

That is precisely what transparency should do.

6. The KPI We Should Be Asking: How Much Revenue Is Exposed?

Here is where the concept becomes particularly useful.

Instead of measuring only total accounts receivable, start measuring:

Revenue exposure by customer risk.

For example:

The third line should immediately generate a question.

Not because Customer C is necessarily unreliable.

Because you do not know.

And uncertainty itself deserves attention when significant amounts of money are involved.

7. Make "Percentage of New Customers Checked" a KPI

This is one of the simplest changes an SME can make.

Track:

Percentage of new credit customers checked before work begins.

Your target could be:

100%.

That does not mean rejecting anyone with an imperfect report.

It means ensuring commercial decisions are made with information rather than without it.

The information might lead you to:

• proceed normally
• request a deposit
• reduce the credit limit
• use staged payments
• shorten payment terms
• request payment upfront
• investigate further

Due diligence should inform decisions, not replace judgement.

Businesses can register with Will They Pay here and begin incorporating payment transparency into their customer-checking process.

8. Payment Behaviour Should Connect Sales and Finance

There is often an uncomfortable divide inside growing businesses.

Sales wants the contract.