Late customer payments push small business owners into borrowing to meet payroll
Small business owners without a cash flow forecast often end up borrowing to cover payroll, according to a contributor column in Entrepreneur. Citing Xero Small Business Insights, the column says customers pay roughly eight days late in the United States and eleven days late in Canada. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada data shows about forty-five percent of Canadian small firms seeking debt needed it for daily operations.
The column's sharpest cost sits outside the ledger. Borrowing to make one payroll eats into the next, so a gap closed in March reopens slightly wider in April, and the terms worsen because the owner negotiates from weakness. A single late payroll run spends staff trust that money cannot repurchase, while evenings lost to reconciliations come out of the founder's core work or family time.
Source: Entrepreneur · October 13, 2026