Company’s financial difficulties and their prevention

If you fail to submit statutory notifications or pay mandatory fees, this accumulates additional costs or other longer-term penalties for your company. You can find more information on the consequences if you are unable to pay on time or at all on the Take care of taxes and statutory payments page.

Remember to report the following to the Incomes Register:

• salaries and allowances paid to employees
• the total amount of the employer's health insurance contribution and deductions from it.

Pay the following on time:

• employees’ withholding taxes and employer’s health insurance contributions to the Tax Administration
• unemployment insurance contributions to the Employment Fund
• earnings-related pension contributions to the pension company
• occupational accident and occupational disease insurance contributions to the insurance company.

Request more payment time or agree to pay in instalments if you are unable to pay on time.

It is usually possible to negotiate different payment arrangements with creditors and debt collection agencies. For example, it is often possible to agree with the bank on a break in loan instalments.

• If you cannot pay the invoice or debt by the due date, contact the creditor immediately. Negotiate a new payment schedule by changing the due date or by other means.
• If changing the due date does not help to make the payment on time, request a longer-term payment arrangement.

Please note that you may have to pay collection costs for the extension of the payment period.

If payment arrangements have not been negotiated, the invoices are transferred to collection after the payment reminders. 

If the debt collection agency uses a draft, i.e. a collection method with a threat of making the company’s payment difficulties public, and you still do not pay the invoices, they are reported to the public protest list and an entry is made in the company's credit information.

If you do not pay the debt despite voluntary recovery, it can be transferred to enforcement. Through enforcement, your company or personal funds can be used to pay debts. Enforcement usually requires a court decision, but taxes and other public fees can be collected in enforcement without a decision. 

If your company does not always have money to pay invoices, find out how you could get more money.

For example, you can:

• shorten the payment period for customer invoices if possible
• consider whether pricing should be changed to increase sales
• capitalise your company's assets to the extent possible.

You can also try to increase your sales with discounts. If you are a member of an entrepreneur organisation, you can use the discount calculator of the Federation of Finnish EnterprisesOpens in a new window. to determine how discounts affect your business.