Your invoice becomes an unsecured claim against the company. Unsecured creditors are paid last, after the administrator's costs, fixed-charge holders, preferential creditors (employees and HMRC), and floating-charge holders. Recoveries for unsecured creditors in UK administrations are commonly between 1p and 3p in the pound; many cases pay nothing at all.
That is the cold answer. The rest of this page is what you can usefully do about it this week, where the exceptions are, and how to read what the administrator publishes next. If your customer has gone into liquidation rather than administration, the creditor mechanics are similar but the process and the office-holder's role differ.
When a UK company enters administration, the Insolvency Act 1986 (Schedule B1) and the Insolvency Rules 2016 set the order in which the company's remaining assets are paid out. The order is not negotiable. Your unpaid invoice almost certainly sits near the bottom.
The administrator's first report at Companies House (filed within eight weeks of appointment) usually gives the first estimate of what each class can expect. The Statement of Affairs (filed within about 75 days) is the administrator's sworn declaration of the company's assets and liabilities; its bottom line is "Estimated total deficiency as regards members", which is the total shortfall across the whole stack.
The window for useful action is the first two to four weeks after the appointment is gazetted. After that, decisions about the company's future have usually been taken.
The administrator's name, firm, and the date of appointment are published in The Gazette within seven days of the appointment, and at Companies House on the day. Their firm's email is the right address for a creditor claim and any questions. Mark the email as a creditor enquiry.
The administrator decides whether to keep trading or wind the business down. Until you have written confirmation that ongoing supply will be paid as an expense of the administration, do not deliver more stock, do not start new work, and do not extend credit. New supply without that confirmation becomes another unsecured claim.
Look for a retention of title clause (do you still own undelivered or unconsumed goods?), a hire-purchase or conditional-sale clause (do you own the equipment until it is paid for?), and any director's personal guarantee. Each one is a separate, parallel route to recovery.
The administrator will send a proof-of-debt form. Send it back with the underlying invoices, your account statement showing the running balance, and your standard terms of business. The administrator cannot pay you anything if you are not on the register.
On any invoice that is more than six months overdue at the time of insolvency, the VAT element is reclaimable from HMRC as bad debt relief on your normal VAT return. This is independent of whatever the administrator pays out.
The first progress report lands at Companies House within eight weeks of appointment. The Statement of Affairs follows within about 75 days. Both update the picture of what is recoverable. The same six-monthly filings continue for the life of the administration.
If your supply contract reserves title until payment in full and the relevant clause was on the contract before the goods were delivered, you may not be an unsecured creditor for those goods. You may still be the owner. Two practical conditions matter: the goods need to be identifiable in the company's possession (still in your packaging, still uninstalled, not commingled or processed beyond recognition), and the administrator has to accept the clause is valid. Where it works, RT skips the entire creditor hierarchy: the goods come back to you.
Where RT typically fails: goods that have been resold to a third party (you have a claim against the proceeds but the goods are gone), goods that have been used in manufacture (they no longer exist as your property), or goods supplied under standard terms that were never communicated to the buyer in the contract.
Equipment supplied on hire purchase or conditional sale remains your property until the company pays in full. The administrator can either continue the agreement and pay the instalments as an expense of the administration, or return the asset. Make the position clear in writing as soon as the appointment is gazetted; if you do nothing, the administrator may go on using your equipment without paying.
Limited liability protects the directors from the company's trade debts, not from a contract they signed personally. If a director signed a personal guarantee for your supply, lease, or loan, that guarantee survives the company's administration. You can pursue the director directly. The threshold question is whether the guarantee is in writing and on its face enforceable; the answer is usually in the original credit-account paperwork.
If you both owe the company and are owed by the company, the two debts net off automatically under Rule 14.25 of the Insolvency Rules. Only the net amount is provable. This sometimes turns an apparent loss into a smaller loss or none at all.
Roughly one in five UK administrations produces a Statement of Affairs we can read. It is the administrator's sworn estimate of the company's assets, secured claims, and unsecured shortfall. The headline figure to look at is the "Estimated total deficiency as regards members": the total shortfall the company faces, across every class of creditor.
Three recent UK administrations, with the figures the administrator declared:
On each company's page, the inline Statement of Affairs panel breaks the deficiency down into the assets available to unsecured creditors (often a small fraction of the total) and the shortfall to unsecured creditors specifically. The full filing is on Companies House, linked from each page.
Most administrations don't come out of nowhere. Late filings, multiple new charges, a director resignation, and a Notice of Intention to Appoint Administrators all land on Companies House and The Gazette in the weeks before. None of these prove a company is in trouble, and most are routine. Together, in the wrong combination, they're often the only warning a supplier gets.
Confirmed is free: add up to five customers or suppliers, and you get an email the day one of them goes into administration. Protect adds liquidation, strike-off, and the earlier warning signs, across an unlimited number of companies.