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Stories Tagged ‘Invoice Discounting’

11 Nov

Invoice Factoring – Maximise Prepayment »

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Invoice Factoring – Maximise Prepayment

We have discussed several times on this blog that headline rates from invoice factoring companies can be misleading. If we put pricing to one side we can look at how you can maximise the amount of cash that your facility will generate.

Debtor Limits – some lender will assess each individual limit while others will only check debtors over 10% of the ledger. It is important you can get funding against your debtors. If you can’t the prepayment level is a red herring.

Minimise Dilution – the higher the number of credit notes you issue the lower the prepayment a lender will offer you. It is therefore important to concentrate on the quality of administration, pick & packing, etc.. to ensure credit notes are kept to a minimum.

Additional Security – lenders may look to increase your prepayment level if you can offer additional security. This could take the form of a personal guarantee, a charge on some unencumbered machinery or a charge against a property. It is really a show of confidence from you as a business owner and offers the lender additional comfort.

Change in Facility – if you have an invoice discounting facility you may get a better prepayment level if you move to a disclosed facility such as invoice factoring. It gives the lender more comfort and as such they may be willing to increase their exposure by increasing prepayment levels.

23 Oct

invoice-finance.com »

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The site is still under development but it will compliment our existing site Smart Factoring Quotes.

The site is aimed at providing business owners with a free online resource that will ultimately help them select both the most suitable invoice finance product for their business and the most suitable invoice finance provider.

It is important to consider that whether you select a factoring of invoice discounting product the way it operates and performs will differ from lender to lender. This is based on the simple mechanics of how lenders operate but also on less obvious things such as a lenders reputation for communication. Some lenders will simply not return calls which can prove very frustrating while others have excellent reputations for customer service levels.

With our knowledge of the market we can help you navigate your way to the lender best placed to meet your needs.

20 Oct

Invoice Discounting v Overdraft facility – Fees »

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Invoice discounting v Overdraft facility

This is a question that I am often asked and unfortunately it is a purely academic question for most businesses. Due to certain test cases relating to floating charges banks are no longer comfortable to lend on overdraft where the major asset within a business is the debtor book. On that basis invoice finance is typically the only option available to a business.

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17 Oct

Invoice Finance – the Terminology »

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Invoice Finance is the generic terms that describes both the industry and the product that provide finance against invoices that a business raises to other businesses.

Under the umbrella of invoice finance there are various products including:

Invoice Discounting – this is where a finance company will provide finance against the invoices raised by a business but the responsibility of collecting the debts in remains with the business itself. This type of facility can be either disclosed or confidential.

Factoring – this is where an invoice finance company purchases the debt from a business and not only provides finance but also provides the credit control function – i.e. they chase the debts. Disclosed factoring is by far the most common form of finance however confidential factoring can be sourced.

CHOCS – this stands for ‘clients handles own collections’ and operates in the same way as a factoring facility. However, the  factoring company allows the client to do their own credit control.

Beyond this there can be recourse and non-recourse facilities for all these types of facilities.

When choosing your facility it is important to consider what you require from the facility and then it is worth speaking with an invoice finance broker to see what facilities will best meet your needs. It is important to remember that each lender has it’s own criteria and capabilities.

28 Sep

Haulage Company Invoice Discounting »

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Our client is a haulage company. They approached Smart Factoring Quotes to seek advice on how best to set up an invoice discounting facility. They were keen to obtain a facility that allowed ‘export invoices’ to be raised to their european clients for the backloads that they carried back to the UK.

Our client had been through challenging times because of rising fuel prices and exchange rate fluctuations. However, they had maintained turnover and had a well established business.

They had been offered factoring facilities but felt that they were best placed to collect in the debts as they knew their customers best. As such they wanted an invoice discounting facility.

If you look at the whole market of invoice finance companies not all are able to provide invoice discounting. Our client was raising export invoices which reduced the amount of lenders able to assist even further.

Through our knowledge of each lenders capabilities and criteria we were able to introduce lenders that were genuinely capable of helping and more importantly were actively seeking new clients.

As such we secured a confidential invoice discounting facility for our client at very competitive rates.

08 Sep

Confidential Invoice Discounting – Flat Service Fees »

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Recently I have seen quite a few confidential invoice discounting clients looking for flat service fees. The most recent being a recruitment business with a turnover of £56m. I asked why the flat fee was attractive and was told it “impacted less on margins.” Who am I to argue with someone who has a built up such a large recruitment business and has been a user of invoice discounting for over a decade. I did however feel that it warranted a comment on the forum.

So what are the benefits of a flat monthly fee? Well I guess it is easier to budget and potentially cheaper for a company with a rising turnover but in reality the costs should not differ dramatically to a percentage based fee. The way the flat fee or percentage based fee is calculated will be the same for any lender anyway. Most lenders will arrive at a monetary service fee and then convert it to a percentage of gross turnover anyway.

There is obviously a requirement for flat fees though as one of the ‘new kids on the block’ Gener8 Finance use this as their USP.

Personally I can’t see the advantages but I guess it provides certainty and in times such as these something has to be said for that.

I would however welcome anyones thoughts on this……

26 Aug

Invoice Discounting – The Alternatives »

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Invoice Discounting can often be a difficult facility to source yet many businesses strive for it without considering the alternaitives. Many people feel that the only alternatives are confidential invoice discounting or full factoring where the lender helps collect your invoices and an assignment notice is on each of your invoices.

What are the alternatives? If you are just looking to collect your own invoices and don’t mind disclosure you could look at either a CHOC’s facility (Client Handles Own Collections) or even a Disclosed Invoice Discounting facility. Both offer lenders more comfort in terms of risk as their involvement is disclosed but they offer businesses the control over credit management.

If confidentiality is key some lenders offer confidential factoring. The lender will undertake your credit control they will call up in the name of your business. This offers you the benefit of an outsourced credit control function but with the confidentiality you feel is important.

Finally there is confidential CHOC’s. This offers the benefits of confidential invoice discounting but it offers the lender slightly more comfort. Without getting too technical (and boring) it means the lender is running a mirror ledger at any time meaning their perceived risk is lower.

16 Aug

Will interest rates rise and will that effect your factoring costs? »

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Interest rates in the form of the Bank of England base rate have remained unchanged at 0.5% for the last 17 months. These low base rates seem attractive to borrowers but are crippling savers who rely on the income their savings generate.

Will rates rise? I think the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that these ultra low rates are not sustainable and as such, yes rates will rise. In a poll of economists by Reuters (29 July) the conclusions were that interest rates would rise from April-June 2011. It was thought that they would rise to 1.5% be the end of 2011.

If you are a factoring client, how will the impact on your costs? Well in some cases it will obviously increase your costs of borrowing money as your discounting fee is made up of a margin and a base rate. As the base rate rises then your costs would increase surely? The answer is maybe. It will differ from lender to lender.

HSBC invoice finance for example have no minimum base rate so any increase from the 0.5% Bank of England base rate will be felt by their clients who are currently enjoying these very low rates.

However, Bibby Financial Services are currently using 3 month LIBOR as a base rate and in the quotations I have seen are using a minimum base rate of 3%. This means that until the base rate (3 month LIBOR in this instance) increases above 3% their clients will not be effected by the potential base increases.

Close Invoice Finance use 1 month LIBOR as a base rate but have an overall minimum discounting fee of 4.5% . So any base rate increases would only impact on the clients of Close Invoice Finance if their total discounting fee increases above 4.5%.

Looking at the invoice finance market in it’s entirety there are a lot of clients who won’t feel the impact of any impending rate increases for some time.

Is this good news? It depends on how you view matters but some may argue that the ones who will not feel the effect of the increases are paying too much at the moment anyway. Then again, you can only choose the best of the offers that are made available to you.

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