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Factoring

The best factoring company for your business will depend on the unique characteristics of your business and importantly on your own requirement.

The main aspect of any factoring companies proposition is the structure of their facility, service levels and pricing.

Structure of a facility

It is imperative that the facility is structured to meet the needs of your business but some lenders may not be able to structure a facility to meet your needs. Some lenders have a credit policy that will not allow them to finance any debtor that exceeds over 25% of your total ledger. If you have one large customer that accounts for a large proportion of your sales ledger or all of your sales ledger such a lender would prove to be restrictive. You will need a lender that does not have such stringent criteria when it comes to concentration limits. Another example can be exports. Some lenders will simply not finance export sales so if you have export sales or are looking at export sales than you need to consider a lender that can finance those sales. Smart Factoring Quotes understand the capabilities and requirements of each lender in the market.

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If you are looking to finance a recruitment business you are in luck as there are several options open to you especially if you are providing contractors or temps that complete time sheets. That said, if you are a permanent recruitment company there are also several options that are available to you.

If you are a recruitment company thatis paying wages weekly against signed time sheets there is a good chance your clients are only paying you monthly at best. Recruitment businesses or notoriously cash negative for this very reason and if you have a fast growing recruitment business this problem is only compounded.

So what finance solutions are available to you?

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If you are looking to improve your business cash flow their are a few things that you can do and we will talk through these separately. In essence you are looking to speed up the flow of cash into the business while slowing down or eliminating the flow of cash out of the business. Let’s take a look at the different areas that can assist:

Credit control – if you are offering credit terms to your customers then it is important to ensure that you are paid on time. You have provided a good service or product and you are entitled to be paid. You have even been generous enough to offer credit terms so it is not asking a lot to be paid on time. Slow payers can have a real impact on the cash flow of your business. In reality if you are dealing with large organisations that have payment runs, etc.. it can be hard to dictate payment terms but you should still stay on top of it. Efficient credit control improves cash flow and importantly reduces the risk of bad debts.

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As a small business factoring can be an ideal solution for your working capital requirements. Factoring does not require you to be well established or even profitable. To qualify for a factoring facility it is more important that your business has the right processes in place, is in a suitable sector and has good quality customers.

Processes

A small business needs to ensure that it’s invoicing procedure is suitable for invoice finance. This means you should create a good audit trail. Agood audit trail for a factoring facility will differ from business to business. For a wholesaler it will include a purchase order, a proof of delivery and an invoice raised in arrears of the delivery. A temporary recruitment company will have a signed agreement, signed time sheets and then invoices submitted on the back of those timesheets. The key is to prove that your product or service was requested, prove that is was delivered to the satisfaction of the customer and as already described that the invoice is then submitted in arrears of the service or product being provided.

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Invoice discounting has often been reserved for larger, well established businesses and smaller businesses have been forced to accept invoice factoring.

The good news is that invoice discounting can be accessed by smaller businesses.

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If you have a business that offers credit terms you can spend a lot of time worrying when you are going to get paid. Cash flow is probably the major challenge for any business and this is why more and more businesses in the UK are starting to use invoice factoring.

Invoice factoring offers businesses the opportunity to access up to 90% of the value tied up in unpaid invoices. This means that by using invoice factoring a business can smooth cash flow and access cash to pay salaries and suppliers when needed. Not only does this eliminate stress it also allows a business to grow and prosper. Invoice factoring also offers the opportunity to outsource your credit control function to a professional business that will chase your outstanding invoices with a system of letters, month end statements and phone calls where necessary.

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If you are looking to compare factoring companies it can be challenging on a number of levels but the team at SFQ are happy to help. They work with the invoice factoring market on a daily basis and understand how to compare factoring companies and the services that they offer.

The challenges of comparing factoring companies

Invoice factoring companies all operate so differently both in terms of the services that they offer and the way that they price their facilities.

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We are often approached for finance by someone starting a new start recruitment business.

New start recruitment companies can range from an individual setting up on their own through to large organisations with ambitious recruitment plans and everything in between. Whatever the size of the business cash flow is key to ensure that contractors wages can be paid on a weekly basis. This is why finance is important.

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