On the evening of September 14th at 11pm, Liu Jie received an urgent notice for a meeting on how to quickly increase the cash payment ratio for small and medium-sized enterprise supplier accounts.

Liu Jie serves as the Chief Financial Officer of a large local manufacturing state-owned enterprise. She said that this kind of emergency meeting at night is rare. At the meeting, the chairman of Liu Jie's state-owned enterprise proposed two new work requirements: firstly, to comprehensively revise the payment contract terms for small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers, and to clarify key contents such as the starting point of the payment period, payment methods and processes, standards and deadlines for goods and services inspection and acceptance (or project completion settlement), and the longest payment period in the payment contract; Secondly, for small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers in urgent need of funds, it is necessary to ensure full payment and early payment.

On the same day, the State Council Information Office held a routine briefing on the policies of the State Council. Officials from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the People's Bank of China, the State owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission introduced the relevant work on strengthening the governance of the problem of difficult payment for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Pei Renquan, the head of the Financial Supervision and Operation Evaluation Bureau of the State owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, stated that efforts will be made to encourage central enterprises to take the lead in not defaulting or delaying payments, to issue fewer invoices and pay more cash, and to break unreasonable industry rules and practices. At the same time, central enterprises will be urged to verify, handle, and respond quickly in strict accordance with laws, regulations, and contract agreements, regardless of whether they are online or offline, and to verify, settle, and hold accountable for any default or delay.

Cao Yuanyuan, Director of the Financial Market Department of the People's Bank of China, stated that from a macro financial perspective, when large enterprises expand their interest free liabilities such as accounts payable, those small and medium-sized enterprises that are squeezed out of cash flow have to borrow from banks. In fact, these small and medium-sized enterprises bear the financing costs passed on by large enterprises, and this structural mismatch also has a negative impact on the transmission of monetary policy. The People's Bank of China will actively cooperate with relevant departments to carry out the management of large enterprise accounts.

This made Liu Jie feel that the regulatory intensity this time is different from before.

Fundraising

In the past two days, Liu Jie's state-owned enterprise has paid over 20 million yuan in cash to small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers. This worries the head of the corporate treasury that, according to the payment rhythm mentioned above, the company will face cash flow pressure.

Liu Jie said that how to raise funds to ensure that enterprises can timely and fully pay the accounts of small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers on the basis of their stable operation, this "battle" must be fought well.

On the one hand, Liu Jie needs to strictly comply with the relevant requirements of the "Notice on Strengthening the Governance of Difficulties in Payment for Small and Medium sized Enterprises", comprehensively revise the payment contract terms of small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers, clarify the four key elements of payment, and on the other hand, urgently collect idle funds in the accounts of various subsidiaries into the head office account as reserve funds for paying small and medium-sized enterprise accounts.

Recently, she has collected over 60 million yuan in funds from various subsidiary accounts. However, relying solely on this method is not enough.

Liu Jie estimates that in the next month, her state-owned enterprise will need to pay about 180 million yuan to small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers. After deducting the daily operating expenses of the enterprise itself, the remaining idle funds of the parent company combined with the funds collected by its subsidiaries may not reach 140 million yuan.

On September 16th, Liu Jie notified a cooperative bank that she would redeem over 40 million yuan of corporate wealth management product shares in advance if necessary, and requested the cooperative bank to arrange funds in advance.

During this period, a colleague from the finance department suggested that the business department persuade small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers to accept new payment vouchers or commercial bills, and alleviate payment financial pressure by extending payment terms.

But Liu Jie did not agree, because the chairman requested that Liu Jie significantly reduce the payment default rate of small and medium-sized enterprises before the end of the year.

At an emergency meeting on the evening of the 14th, the chairman of this local state-owned enterprise gave Liu Jie a "dead order" to quickly curb the abuse of account vouchers and gradually eliminate payment defaults and arrears by small and medium-sized enterprises. He said that in the past, many small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers complained about overdue payments, one of the important reasons being that the companies issued a large number of payment vouchers, prolonged payment terms, and did not pay cash in a timely manner.

Liu Jie told reporters that the reason why the chairman attaches so much importance to this issue is that the local State owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission has included complaints about small and medium-sized enterprise debts in the performance evaluation of local large state-owned enterprise leaders. At the end of the year, the local State owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission will hold talks with the heads of large state-owned enterprises ranked high in the complaint cases of debt owed by small and medium-sized enterprises.

In order to reduce the default and arrears of accounts by small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers and alleviate the pressure of complaints, Liu Jie has set new conditions for issuing account vouchers: account vouchers issued to small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers must be approved by multiple departments including business, compliance, risk control, and finance, and the longest period of account vouchers must not exceed 6 months. If the single amount of the new account voucher exceeds 10 million yuan, it still requires the signature of the company's general manager or chairman.

Liu Jie said that recently, the strategy of enterprises is to minimize the use of account vouchers as much as possible to avoid an increase in debt complaints from small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers.

Rectification

A few years ago, Liu Jie's state-owned enterprise extended the payment terms of about 40% of small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers to 12 months by issuing payment vouchers.

She admitted that this move not only significantly revitalizes corporate funds and enhances turnover capacity, but also has another consideration: investing this money in corporate wealth management products to create additional income, fill the profit gap, and meet the profitability assessment requirements set by local state-owned assets supervision and administration commissions.

From 2022 to 2024, this state-owned enterprise can intercept approximately 600 million yuan of accounts payable funds annually by issuing 12-month payment vouchers to some small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers, and then invest this money in fixed income corporate wealth management products with an annualized return rate of about 3%, creating approximately 18 million yuan of wealth management income annually, thereby increasing the overall profit of the enterprise.

In April 2025, the People's Bank of China, together with the General Administration of Financial Supervision and other departments, jointly issued the Notice on Regulating Supply Chain Financial Business and Guiding Supply Chain Information Service Institutions to Better Serve SME Financing, guiding the China Internet Finance Association to issue self-discipline rules and standardize the management of reconciliation voucher business.

As a result, the state-owned enterprise where Liu Jie works can only compress the maximum term of account vouchers to 6 months. But this did not have a significant impact on the financial returns of this state-owned enterprise.

In practical operation, this state-owned enterprise took certain actions that indirectly extended the payment period. For example, citing the need for enterprises to spend time on centralized reconciliation before issuing invoices, the actual payment period can be extended to 9-10 months by delaying the starting point of account vouchers; For certain engineering payments, methods such as delaying the acceptance time of the project are adopted, and the starting point of the payment voucher is repeatedly postponed, which extends the actual payment period of small and medium-sized contractors to 10-12 months.

Liu Jie said that through these operations, companies can still retain over 500 million yuan of accounts payable funds and invest in corporate wealth management products.

She admitted that these practices are quite common among large state-owned enterprises in the local area, and even some large enterprises play the business of "eating from both ends" in order to increase revenue - first depositing 10% reserve funds in the bank to prove their payment ability, and then issuing a large number of account vouchers and commercial bills to extend the payment period of small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers. If some small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers urgently need money, the enterprise will provide account vouchers to pledge financing and match transactions, and charge a 2% intermediary service fee.

Cao Yuanyuan pointed out that the standardization of account voucher business was insufficient in the early stages of development. Some core enterprises used account vouchers to delay payments and extend payment terms, and the management standards of service platforms were also relatively lacking. Some core enterprises saved their own financial costs by issuing account vouchers and delaying payments in large quantities, while charging high financing service fees to suppliers who held account vouchers. Some core enterprises even provided high interest financing for account vouchers through their affiliated factoring companies to earn interest, resulting in a situation of "eating both ends" for suppliers.

Cao Yuanyuan stated that as of the end of July this year, the balance of accounts and vouchers in the entire market was 2.4 trillion yuan, a decrease of 20% from over 3 trillion yuan before standardized management; The average term of account vouchers has been shortened by 92 days compared to the same period last year before standardized management; Some large enterprises with the problem of "eating from both ends" have withdrawn from the account voucher business.

Liu Jie told reporters that currently, enterprises are strictly prohibited from adopting the above-mentioned grey operation practices, which indirectly prolong the payment cycle of small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers by blurring the calculation nodes of account vouchers.

The chairman of Liu Jie's state-owned enterprise has made it clear that if any such violations are found, the relevant responsible persons will be severely punished.

She admitted that after implementing the new conditions for issuing accounting vouchers, the number of relevant vouchers issued by the company has significantly decreased, which has also significantly curbed gray operation behavior to a certain extent.

At the same time, this state-owned enterprise is also working to curb the abuse of commercial bills, as the chairman learned that in the past they had issued a large number of commercial bills to small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers, extending payment terms to 9-12 months. Due to the difficulty of discounting commercial bills by banks, some small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers have complained to relevant departments that their accounts have been indirectly delayed.

Liu Jie's preliminary estimate is that if the usage of commercial bills and account vouchers continues to decrease, enterprises will need to spend an additional 500 million yuan in cash in the next six months to settle various accounts of small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers. Even if the enterprise takes out all idle funds and the principal and income of corporate wealth management products due for redemption, there is still a funding gap of about 200 million yuan.

This forced Liu Jie to seek new sources of funding.

Loan

On September 17th, Liu Jie met with the corporate business leaders of two cooperating banks and proposed that the company needs a one-year loan of 200 million yuan specifically for cash settlement of accounts for small and medium-sized enterprises.

These two cooperating banks did not quickly agree to the loan application, but instead provided their own loan conditions. One bank requires companies to provide high-quality assets as collateral for loans to increase creditworthiness; Another bank requires Liu Jie to transfer some of the main business income and expenditure accounts of the enterprise to the bank, so that the bank can fully understand the income and expenditure situation of the enterprise's main business.

Liu Jie was somewhat displeased with these requirements, as the state-owned enterprise had unused credit lines of several hundred million yuan each in two banks, both of which had promised to 'withdraw loans at any time'. The explanation given by the bank is that this credit line is mainly used to support the expansion of enterprise production capacity, but this 200 million yuan loan is mainly used for "debt replacement of accounts payable of small and medium-sized enterprises", and the two fund uses are completely different, so the bank needs to re evaluate the lending conditions.

Liu Jie informed the general manager of the company of this information. Shortly afterwards, the general manager informed her over the phone that a loan agreement had been reached with one of the cooperating banks, who would provide a credit loan of 200 million yuan. After the enterprise significantly reduces the payment terms of small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers, this cooperative bank will assist the enterprise in issuing hundreds of millions of yuan in bonds to repay the above-mentioned loans.

Yu Lei is the president of a joint-stock bank's Beijing branch. He told reporters that since September 15th, more than 10 large local state-owned enterprises in his jurisdiction have been seeking loans (for cash payments to small and medium-sized enterprises).

At present, the conditions for issuing such loans in the joint-stock bank where he works are that the credit rating of the lending enterprise must reach at least AA level, the overall debt ratio must not exceed 70%, and the annual balance of the main business income must cover the principal and interest of the loan or have good refinancing ability.

In order to prevent the misappropriation of relevant loan funds, this joint-stock bank plans to adopt the entrusted payment method - directly transferring the relevant loan funds to the designated small and medium-sized enterprise supplier accounts of local large state-owned enterprises.

Yu Lei told reporters that after preliminary evaluation within the branch, seven large local state-owned enterprises meet the above-mentioned loan conditions. If the other three companies can add credit collateral to increase their creditworthiness, it will not be difficult to obtain loan approval.

(At the request of the interviewee, Liu Jie is using a pseudonym)