Tutoring

Payment Behaviour Analysis: Tutoring Sector

As a senior business analyst specialising in UK commercial payment trends, I have conducted a thorough review of the financial practices within the Tutoring sector. The dataset, comprising 27 companies, reveals a remarkably disciplined payment culture that largely favours suppliers and creditors. Upon analysing the central tendency of the data, the sector demonstrates a robust adherence to standard 30-day payment terms. The arithmetic mean stands at 28.7 days, with a median of 28 days. The close proximity of the mean and median—separated by less than a full day—suggests a stable distribution lacking the skew often caused by extreme delinquent payers. With a standard deviation of 10.6 days, the variability in payment speed is relatively contained, indicating that financial controllers across this sector generally organise their accounts payable processes with high efficiency and consistency.

When we analyse the distribution and quartile data further, the sector’s health becomes even more apparent. The majority of the sample is situated in the 'Fast' category, with 63.0% of companies settling invoices between 0 and 30 days. Whilst the 25th percentile sits at an impressive 24 days, indicating that a quarter of the sector pays significantly early, the 75th percentile is only 32 days. This results in a tight interquartile range of just 8 days. Consequently, stakeholders should realise that predicting cash flow from clients in the Tutoring sector is statistically easier than in more volatile industries. Notably, there is a complete absence of companies in the 'Very Slow' (61-90 days) or 'Critical' (90+ days) categories. The slowest payer recorded settled in 58 days, keeping the entire cohort within a manageable 60-day window.

However, amongst these positive indicators, a nuanced look at the performance breakdown is necessary. Although the average time to pay is excellent, the data shows that 24.2% of payments are classified as 'late'. This seemingly contradictory statistic—a low average day count paired with a quarter of payments being late—suggests that whilst companies pay quickly, they may be missing specific invoice due dates by small margins, or there is a minority of invoices dragging down the efficiency of otherwise prompt payers. Nevertheless, the breakdown confirms that 67.5% of actual invoices are paid within 30 days. The presence of five top performers settling accounts in under 20 days—including a fastest payer at just 3 days—sets a high benchmark for best practice within the industry.

Geographically, the data is heavily weighted towards the capital, with the centre of activity located in London (9 companies) and the South East (5 companies). This regional concentration may correlate with the efficient payment behaviour observed, as firms in these hubs often utilise more sophisticated, automated payment technologies. In conclusion, the Tutoring sector exhibits a low-risk profile. Suppliers extending credit to these businesses can generally expect payment behaviour that aligns with, or exceeds, standard contractual expectations, provided they realise that minor delays may occur amongst a minority of transactions.