Recruiters are finding it takes more time for clients to pay them, according to BDO Stoy Hayward's current Recruitment Industry Benchmarking (RIB) index.

The analysis of financial performance reveals that clients have imposed an additional financial burden of £284m onto recruiters by increasing their terms of payment, taking the total invoices outstanding at anytime to more than £3bn.

The index shows that the time to receive payment from invoicing clients over the past two years has varied between 33.7 days and 46.4 days. The average of June was 43.2 days, the second highest level in two years.

The index also reveals the pressure that the increasing interest rate rise has had on recruiters. It found that each quarter of a per cent rate rise costs the recruitment industry £700,000 each month.

BDO says that more positive news is that recruitment revenue is still increasing year on year. It advised: "Collecting the debts arising from the increase should not be neglected and the sales teams should remember, a sale is not really a sale until the cash has been received."

The index finds that year on year growth exceeds 10%, therefore all businesses will need facilities to finance the growth. With all clients delaying payment this will increase the pressure on facilities available, and recruiters need to ensure that they have sufficient headroom to cope as well as keeping some back for unexpected events, BDO advises.

l Recruitment Industry Benchmarking (RIB) provides its members with monthly up-to-date analysis of their performance on key industry measurements. This enables them to measure, manage and improve their business performance.

Members of the Forum of Professional Recruiters (FPR) have reported mixed fortunes for the temporary and permanent markets in July.

Forum secretary, Leslie Waters, told Recruiter: "The permanent market fell overall by 15% in July; however, this is because June was an unusually high month, skewed by one or two large performances.

"Apart from this unusual June, July was in fact the highest month on record, 5% up on May. And indeed, July was also 4% higher than July of last year, so therefore the underlying upward trend continues."

Walters added: "The steady upward trend in the number of temps also continued, with a 1% rise in July over June. Overall, temps are now 8% higher than the start of the year and 5% higher than this time last year."