A factoring facility provided by the most appropriate finance company will leave you free to unlock the true potential of your business rather than spend your time juggling bills and chasing customers for outstanding invoices.

Choose the wrong finance company however, and it could have disastrous consequences on your business.

The factoring company which will best suit your business depends on a number of differing factors.

Geographic location – independents can be regionalised rather than nationalised.

Turnover – Some Factoring companies specialise in a certain turnover level.

Length of time trading.

Credit rating – Banks will only fund businesses with reasonable credit.

Number and quality of invoices.

Concentration levels – Some funders may exclude you if you have only one or two customers.

Any foreign invoices? – Some factoring companies have an international presence.

Is part of your business contractual? – There are only two factoring companies that can provide a facility.

Do you need credit insurance? – Banks and independents provide very different types of credit insurance.

Do you need an overpayment? – Certain factoring companies can provide a top up via an EFG loan.

Do you have any other borrowing facilities with your bank? – This may or may not work in your favour depending on the circumstance.

We advise;

Always see two and a maximum of three -  any more and the factoring companies won’t take you seriously.

Make sure you understand the charging structure – rmember the headline rates do not always show the full picture.

Make sure you are comfortable with the individuals involved in the business.

Make sure you know the credit limits of your top ten customers.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions and arrange a visit to their premises.

For more information please do not hesitate to call us.

Often a small business must undertake a large capital equipment investment in order to grow. The balance sheet of the business is often not strong enough to justify a Hire Purchase or Finance Lease facility.

Without capital investment the business can not grow and become more profitable. A chicken and egg scenario.

Small Business Finance is an area in which XL Business Finance has a great deal of expertise. As an independent finance broker we understand the problems of small business finance, arranging equipment leasing and machinery finance for example.

At XL Business Finance we can provide small business finance for investments from as little as £1000. This could be useful for providing tax efficient leasing for office furniture, computer equipment and telephone systems for instance.

Do not think of us as a company who provides you with a one off service to get you up and running then disappears into the night. We work along side many clients for many years providing finance solutions such as factoring, debt factoring or factoring invoice discounting facility.

As an independent factoring broker XL Business Finance can provide you with the best Business finance to meet your specific requirements.

Unlike asset finance specialists where commission is added into the deal, the factoring broker is paid by the factoring or invoice discounting company from the income they would normally charge.

There are some important factors that need to be taken into account when choosing the right finance company. The biggest factor is to identify whether your business requires factoring or invoice discounting. Not all funders are equally specialised in factoring and invoice discounting. In fact some may just concentrate on one aspect of funding. The size and length your business has been trading needs also to be taken into consideration. High street banks are not always the most appropriate funder.

XL Business finance is one of the North of England’s premier independent finance companies with established links to many of the UK’s leading finance houses. Call us today, we are happy to discuss your specific situation.

Selective factoring looks at the individual transaction rather than the whole balalnce sheet and debtor book. For smaller or new start business it enables a business to factor selective debts without the need to be tied into a 1 or 2 year contract. In difficult times this obviously helps keep costs down. For larger more established business selective factoring enables factoring of individual invoices where whole turnover factoring isnt needed or wanted.

Obvioulsy there are a number of financial institutions that offer selective factoring. We are able to find the best solution for your needs. Contact us today.

With most finance companies the clock starts ticking on the day you submit the invoice, however with one or two providers the clock starts kicking at the end of the month.

Therefore if you submit an invoice say on the second of the month the 90 days don’t start until the end of that month.

For many businesses this additional working capital as customers seem to be taking longer and longer to pay. If you are factoring with a company that starts the 90 days the day you submit your invoice you potentially will pay more charges and have a reduced funding line. As soon as you hit 90 days and if your customer hasn’t paid then the value of that invoice will be deducted from your available allowance restricting available cash. In addition if there isn’t enough of an available allowance you will go over your agreed prepayment possibly triggering expensive charges for over payments.

Indeed it has been recently suggested that certain finance companies hold back cheques and don’t pay them to their clients account until a day or so after invoices become disallowed after 90 days therefore triggering charges.

Surely not. The fact of the matter is that customers should be paying within the 90 days and a good factoring company should be collecting debt in the necessary time scale. Unfortunately this doesn’t always happen and as such a few extra days funding can make a big difference.

A good factoring broker will be able to add value and select the most appropriate finance company for your particular requirements.

The next obvious step for additional working capital would be to apply for an invoice factoring facility which will release up to eighty five percent of your unpaid invoices. Now in our opinion the banks are not the best at providing factoring to new start businesses. You will be a very small fish in a very large sea and as such service and accessibility may indeed frustrate you somewhat.  However because you have a small overdraft and a debenture registered you will be railroaded into using the banks in house factoring company because to use a third party funder you will need to repay the overdraft to get the debenture released. A debenture is a fixed and /or floating charge over the book debts of the business. Any cash flow facility either invoice factoring or overdraft will require that the lender has a debenture.

Ok the bank would seem the obvious choice however as soon as the business starts to grow you may find that your overall limit is restricted and you end up with less cash with the banks overdraft and factoring facility compared with a independent factoring facility who traditionally will fund your invoices to a higher level. In addition as your turnover starts to grow the problem increases further whereby it is difficult to get cash. You then start looking around for a more flexible funder and hopefully in the meantime cash flow isn’t affected beyond repair.

When a bank has got too much of a handle of a businesses finances and their is a requirement for additional funding, due to the overall exposure it might be difficult to obtain the required additional working capital. In extreme cases the banks may view this as a signal that the business is in difficulty and pull in some investigative accountants. In our opinion all banks are interested in is covering their own position and have little desire to help a business trade thorough any difficulties.

Unfortunately it is not straight forward to switch from one invoice discounting company to another invoice discounting company when a commercial mortgage is involved. One would think that a commercial mortgage is a stand alone facility which really it should be. However as soon as invoice discounting is taken out a all assets debenture will be registered against the business which will also include the property as well as plant and machinery

We have seen a few instances where the bank have in principle agreed to let the invoice discounting business go but in reality it has taken months and months to do the transfer because of  the incumbent bank wont realise the book debt from the debenture. In reality a deed of priority will be required in complicated cases however these can take forever and a day and as we know dealing with the banks legal departments can be like pulling teeth,

The best way forward is always to keep different finance products separate from different finance products and as such you will never find yourself in the mercy of one bank.

First things first, most finance companies will sign up a business on factoring for at least a 12 month contract and in some instances we have seen two or even three year contracts. In addition there will be a 3 month notice period. However some of the banks offer one month rolling contracts to customers unsure if they require the service or not. Anyone on a longer contract and feels that the relationship has totally broken down between themselves and the funder may be allowed to leave. This is unusual as most factoring companies don’t allow customers to leave that easily. It may also be possible to do a deal with the exiting factoring ompany and in addition the new factoring company may contribute to the costs of the move. The cost of moving needs to be compared with the amount of additional cash a move could release so you can decide whether a move is worth it  or not.

As we have mentioned with previous blogs not all factoring companies can be all things to all men. Bank owned factoring companies operate completely differently to independently owned factoring companies. We tend to find that with factoring that requires that the funder provides credit control the independents are superior to collecting the debt.

XL Business Finance has helped many business find the most appropriate and flexible finance company. As a rule the larger independents tend to be a little more flexible and as such they are more amenable to overpayments. They would normally only advance up to 100% of the outstanding debtor book unless there is additional security available to provide the necessary cover. Try and approach yoyr local bank manager to organise an overpayment. It just wont happen. With a independent provider you are never more than one or two phone calls away from a decision maker and as such they are far more flexible.

When we say independent finance company we mean one that isn’t bank owned or doesn’t borrow money from the banks to lend money. There are plenty of so called independent invoice factoring companies that borrow money off the banks and as a result tend to have the same sort of restrictions that the banks have. A rue independent is one that does not borrow any money off the banks and it is these that tend to be more flexible.

The two main problems with bank overdraft the level of the facility is often restricted by the amount of security available. A token overdraft facility without providing additional security  may be available depending upon the level of profitability however more often than not it is never enough. Therefore as a business grows and you need to increase the amount of working capital it may be difficult to obtain an increase. Secondly overdrafts are repayable on demand. Until the recession I don’t think anyone believed the bank would pull overdrafts however during the credit crunch and the recession the banks have shown their true colours. We have heard horror stories about the banks withdrawing overdrafts and forcing companies into administration. With factoring or invoice discounting, so long as you don’t breach the terms of the facility it is not possible for the facility to be withdrawn. And even if you breach the terms of the facility it is more likely that your factoring or invoice discounting provider will work with you to a satisfactory solution.  It is therefore important that you choose your factoring or invoice discounting company carefully to make sure they are approachable and potentially flexible. It is more likely this will not be a bank owned provider but this doesn’t mean a facility will be more expensive.