Australian businesses settled their invoices at what Dun & Bradstreet termed "a record pace" for the first three months of 2016. The average rate for settlement of trade invoices dropped to 43.7 days, the fourth consecutive quarter of faster settlements, and is almost seven days faster than the prior corresponding period's 50.4 days.Even D&B were perplexed, noting that: "The results come during a period of mixed economic signals, … in an environment marked by increasingly cautious sentiment amongst businesses leading into the federal election."Apparent in the analysis is the existence of disparate trade payments behaviour based on business size, as has been found in countless similar surveys. This time, however, the disparities were more pronounced, with small to medium sized businesses "clearly cashed up through low borrowing costs, relatively low input costs and non-existent wage growth" paying their invoices with "unprecedented swiftness." "Businesses with between six and 19 staff settled their invoices at the fastest average rate of 40.2 days. This is despite a rise in business failures recorded over the same period," D&B observed."Conversely, those businesses with more than 500 employees are flexing their muscle and paid their invoices at the slowest average rate of 52.4 days."Underlying the bravado, though, is fragility: Dun & Bradstreet's March Business Expectations Survey indicated 51 per cent of businesses would choose to miss a payment to a trade supplier if they were unable to pay all of their bills. The survey also found that 38 per cent of businesses have had a customer or supplier become insolvent or otherwise unable to pay them during the past year.