Figures show a drop from 40% to 14% on the last quarter, while businesses that have had a reduction on sales volumes have gone from 30% to 7%.

However, suppliers demanding payment in advance have increased considerably, with 20% of businesses facing the issue, compared to 2% last quarter.

R3 president Frances Coulson said: "As we have seen in previous recessions, once the economy begins to show signs of recovery creditors tend to make a more concerted effort to pursue those who are indebted to them and tighten up their lending facilities.

"However, we are still in the early stages of recovery and it takes time for this to translate into tangible relief for businesses. For the many businesses that used all their reserves to survive the recession, supportive creditors are more important than ever."

The positive news does not seem to have transfered to print's small businesses. Sidney Bobb, BAPC chairman, said: "April was a very bad month, the double bank holiday has taken a lot of the work away, it isn't a very good time."

Despite the negativity, he did see some improvement before April, with March a better month than both February and April.

Meanwhile, the number of businesses that believe banks are not being supportive has increased.

Throughout the recession, businesses have blamed lack of support and credit for their financial woes.

But things do not appear to be improving in Q1 2011, with 25% of businesses surveyed by the insolvency trade body strongly disagreeing that banks are being supportive, up seven percentage points on the figures from September 2010.

Unsurprisingly the same number of businesses are also concerned about their debt - 43% of these companies are worried about bank loans and financial debt, a 19 percentage point increase from September 2010.