Knowledge base · Industry knowledge · 5 min leestijd · 2 Sep 2026

Exporting within Europe: keeping credit risk under control

A new market grows your turnover and your credit risk at the same time. With a foreign client you know less, you can check less, and payment takes longer. This article runs through what you can establish beforehand and where you can transfer the risk.

Container stacks and a reach stacker at the docks at dusk

Why payment takes longer across the border

DSO is the average number of days an invoice stays outstanding. Days Sales Outstanding, and visible directly in your own figures.

Within Europe that DSO differs sharply per country. In southern Europe the averages are structurally higher than in Germany or Scandinavia.

That difference sits in the trading practice of the country, not in your client. So allow for it in your liquidity planning.

What you can establish beforehand

Check your customer's VAT number in the European VIES system. That confirms whether the business is actively registered.
Look for references from Dutch businesses already working with this party. That tells you more than annual accounts you cannot read.
Set your payment and delivery terms down in the language of the contract. In a dispute that is the document that counts.
Check whether the business has a findable website with address details and terms. The absence of one says something.

Where it gets harder than in the Netherlands

Company information is less public in many countries than it is here. A trade register with annual figures is not a European standard.

On top of that come differences in language, law and negotiating culture. A contract discussion that takes an afternoon here then runs over weeks.

And in a dispute the question is which law applies and where you litigate. You settle that in advance or you do not settle it at all.

What you can hand over

Screening foreign customers and following up payments is specialist work. With factoring that work transfers to the financier.

SOOF Finance takes over the full receivables book, including your foreign debtors. Which countries fit within the structure depends on the credit insurance.

The credit risk and the receivables management then no longer sit with you. The comparison with a standalone policy is in credit insurance or factoring.

Which businesses this affects

This mainly touches businesses in import and export and wholesale and distribution. There a stock that holds money often runs alongside it.

SOOF Finance works with SMEs.

About the author

Jaap van Aalst

Commercieel directeur, SOOF Finance

Jaap van Aalst started his first business almost thirty years ago, in staffing and secondment. That is where he saw for himself how many opportunities are lost when money sits too long in unpaid invoices.

Around eighteen years ago he moved into the factoring world, as commercial director. Since then he has sat across the table from countless business owners and seen at first hand what financing questions look like in practice. He looks further than the balance sheet: what the business does, where the opportunities are, and which form of finance genuinely moves it forward.

That is also the basis of his work at SOOF Finance. His starting point is simple: finance is not an end in itself, but a means by which a good entrepreneur delivers on their plans.

Ask your question

Frequently asked questions

Yes, within the limits of the credit insurance. Which countries and which customers fit becomes clear from the credit check.

That differs sharply per country and per sector. So compare your own DSO with your history and with your peers.

Both. You are paid sooner and the credit risk is covered within the structure.