What does Ireland's 'technical recession' mean to your business? You probably read in the media this week 'Ireland Inc.' is now in a technical recession. The impact of which will vary from industry to industry.

What's clear, is that many companies anecdotally have noticed debtor days outstanding creeping up, and the time their teams are spending chasing invoices increasing. Other than the CRO stats from earlier in the week, there's some fairly reliable data to say why.

This year, we've seen the level of business closures increase from 1,849 to 1,866 before year end. On top of this, we have also seen an increase in the number of insolvencies from 336 in the first three quarters of 2022 to 447 for the same period in 2023.

If you can relate to the above, rest assured there's some resources available to help you stay ahead of this increasing rate of corporate insolvencies and how they can affect your business.

As an example, CRIFVision-net Credit Reports are currently predicting over 80% of insolvencies, up to six months before they occur. This lets you tighten your credit limits and adjust your exposure. It also lets you trade more confidently, safe in the knowledge of dealing with clients who are very unlikely to become a bad debt write off.

This also enables you to preserve resources such as time, money, and technology, in order to keep up and manage a lower number of unpaid invoices.

Predicting Business Failure

Why monitor your key customers and suppliers? Well firstly because they are just that; 'key' to your business. So you can know in advance that they are showing signs of potential failure, and thus take proactive, corrective actions and minimise exposure. This can reduce the number of days of credit, or enable a stronger focus on credit control for higher risk parties.

Predicting up to 80% of business failures before they happen, empowers you with buffer time to consider your best options and next steps.

RiskWatch

Once you have established the risk status of a customer or supplier, our RiskWatch service (unique to Vision-net), will aler you to potential changes in the status of companies that matter the most to your business, by not only scanning filings in the CRO, but also notices published and a variety of other sources.

RiskWatch provides instant online alerts on companies you search. Whether you have had a liquidator appointed, a meeting of creditors, or simply filed new documents to the CRO you will be the first to know.

And to top it all off, RiskWatch is a complimentary service, included with your Vision-net account, so you will get all of the information, as soon as it is available, at no extra cost.

If you would like to learn more about RiskWatch, call: +353 1 903 2660, or email solutions.vision-net@crif.com.