We normally think of sale and leaseback or sale and HP back facilities only being available for heavy plant and machinery such as engineering and printing equipment. For the right reasons it is possible to refinance rare and valuable antiques. A half million pound refinance facility has been transacted against antiquities and a hundred thousand pounds has been raised against Andy Warhol paintings. Not all finance companies are able to provide such facilities but it is worth knowing if the need arises.  XL Business Finance has access to many bespoke finance products

Sugar CRM. Ever heard of it? It’s like candy for your customers…thus the name entails. It’s a great way to boost sales for your business, retain customers, and actually save money while doing so.

Here are the top 5 features that might make you consider using Sugar:

1. It’s affordable. Their most popular plan – the ‘professional version’ is only $540 per year per user. That’s equivalent to only $45 per month. It has a lower cost of entry and its open platform is cloud-based allowing for it to be cheaper than most on-premise solutions. Needless to say, it’s a cost-effective way to stay engaged with your customers and give them what they love – a little sugar.
2. Options and flexibility. SugarCRM offers customizations galore! It integrates fluidly with many of the current CRM products you may be using. Sugar uses common language, utilizes SOAP and REST API and there’s no hidden fees or limitations which gives you greater control. There’s also a myriad of add-ons that can be used with Sugar. Not to mention…SugarCRM also works in an open environment, giving you more control of your company’s future and saving you money while doing so.
3. It’s social! There’s an Activity Streams dashlet that allows you to see Facebook friends’/fans’ news feeds, see who you should get connected with on LinkedIn, and read tweets of all the people you follow in the dashlet. The platform also lets you add a Twitter handle to a contact or lead and read their tweets directly in the contact or lead record. Lastly, Sugar also has great e-mail integration, letting you sync contacts, calendars and tasks from Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Lotus Notes and pretty much any IMAP mail server.
4. Collaboration and Project Management. Sugar delivers a full project management solution combined with the sales management, marketing automation, and customer support used by employees to manage customer-centric activities. These capabilities allow users to deploy projects across all customer-facing tasks, including campaigns, opportunities, accounts, and customer cases. Since project management is integrated with Sugar’s customer information, users no longer need to be concerned with redundant or inaccurate information, lost customer data, poor information sharing, or lack of user adoption.
5. It’s Mobile! Sales teams surely love this feature as they’re often on-the-go. Sugar allows you to access client information from your tablet or Smartphone and also lets you add info in real time. This means that if you’re at an event and encounter a lead, you can seamlessly add their information to Sugar mobile and your sales team can have an e-mail to them in minutes!

For further business improvement ideas please contact Roger Brown from nuOrder Limited, a leading business consultancy working with many award winning clients.
See www.nuOrder.co.uk

Business doesn’t happen, you make it!

BACS, the payment company states that UK SMEs are  were owed £3bn in late payments which is a record since records began and 10% up from last year. Invoice finance and in particular factoring maybe a valuable tool in helping combat late payers. Not only will a full factoring service provide  cash against up paid invoices but it will also provide a full credit control facility leaving you free to go and run your business.

Small firms are owed an average of £39k and have to wait two months to be paid. The worst payers are large firms responsible for 48% of all late payments and the best payers are the government and not for profit organisations. If you feel that late payers are restricting your business factoring could be the perfect solution

Invoice factoring is the immediate injection of cash against value of outstanding invoices. Also known as account receivable factoring, invoices are raised up to 90% of the invoice value is released within 24 hours, the remaining 10% is paid, less a small service fee, once invoice factoring payment is received from the customer.

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.

The amount of profit you make is due to either your success or failure and ultimately fuels the growth of your business, generates a financial support for the owners and provides for the well being of the staff.

To increase your profits you need to determine factors contributing to your gross profit and your overheads. Gross profit requires you to either expand your sales income while controlling your direct costs, or reduce direct costs to increase gross profit.

WH Smith the high street retailer has pleased the financial markets by delivering lower revenue but with a higher margin %. As they say ‘revenue is for vanity, profit is for sanity, and cash is reality’.

To do this you need to ensure the following:

• You know and understand your market/s and your competitors
• You have full product and/or service knowledge and you are technically capable in managing all aspects of the business
• Your service and/or products are of the highest quality, delivered on time and run in accordance with any legislation or other specifications.
• You apply marketing campaigns that are cost-effective but increase your sales. These include in-house promotions, leaflets, press releases and adverts.

Your business overheads also need to be kept under control and requires you to monitor, review and strategise for the following:

• Business Expenses – keep to an absolute minimum, and ensure that any additional overheads you assume result in increased profitability and/or efficiency.
• Increase Overheads – ensure that you have reviewed the market and established where the best place is to purchase your stock. Reliability and costs need to be justified.
• Assets acquired on finance – Review and check your finance options to see if you can getter a better deal elsewhere or reduce your general loan costs
• Reviews – Many businesses could benefit from a regular review of their telephone and insurance costs. Even bank charges can often be reduced through negotiation or review.
• Credit – Regularly monitor your credit account customers to avoid bad debts occurring and find the best credit card deal relating to your business.

Roger T Brown
Consultant
http://www.nuOrder.co.uk

Just because the high street banks are not lending money it doesn’t mean that no one is lending money. For every high street lending product there is at least one independent finance company providing an alternative. Often these alternatives can be more flexible and creative. XL Business Finance has been helping businesses for over 12 years find innovative and flexible business financing solutions

Alternative forms of funding can be provided for leasing , hire purchase, refinance of assets, factoring, invoice discounting, international trade finance, construction finance  and commercial mortgages. In addition it may be possible to obtain Europeans loans monies if you know where to look as well as the government banked EFG funding. Alternatives forms of funding are not just restricted to those businesses that have been knocked back by their bank. Long established and profitable business may also benefit from getting an alternative viewpoint

Any business that has been declined funding by the bank might be eligible for European  Loan money. Depending on your location loans of £50-£250k may be available for expansion and development. The business whilst must have exhausted their options with the banks ( which isn’t very difficult nowadays) must be wanting the cash for positive reasons. The cash might be required for additional working capital to purchase stock for example to fulfill a full order book. It might be a deposit for a new machine or property for example. The idea is that the loans are available for businesses that will potential create new jobs in their particular sector or area. Call Mark Redman of XL Business Finance on 07748 635 206 to find out if you maybe eligible for funding.

Need help with collecting payments but don’t need or want  full factoring?  It is not commonly known that it is possible to outsource this function to a specialist credit control company. Why waste valuable time chasing and collecting aged debtors when this can be done on your behalf in a cost effective and efficient manner. Many businesses loose sight that this is probably one of the most important aspects of running a business. XL Business Finance has teamed up with a leading credit control and bad debt recovery firm to provide support and advice to businesses requiring  additional help in collecting their debts.

In additional credit control can be provided in a confidential manner with your dedicated creditor controller working as one of your employees. A number  of these credit control companies also have their own legal team therefore providing a dove tailed solution should a payment become overdue , disputed or bad. In the current economic climate of slow and bad payers there is evidence to suggest that the quicker and harder you hit your bad debts the more likely you are to recover your monies. Therefore if you find your aged debtor report with too many customers in the 90 day plus column you seriously need some help.

Anyone involved in the instruction industry will know how difficult it is to obtain working capital facilities. Due to the contractual nature of invoicing and applications for payment traditional forms of invoice finance are not available. The good news is that there are two or three independent finance companies that can provide funding against contractual debt and application for payments.

Specialist invoice finance companies use their own QS’s to asses work and provide funding that traditionally isn’t available via the high street banks. Whilst prepayments might not be as high as traditional invoice finance and factoring facilities the ability to get 50 or 60% of outstanding payments provides vital working capital for many businesses. As with any form of business finance the finance companies in question are all very different animals and provide slightly different forms of funding. XL Business Finance with over 12 years of experience can help you with speaking to the right funder.

Until now stand alone asset refinance has only been available from specialist  and traditional more expensive finance companies.  However, a prime funder has now entered the market offering to refinance plant machinery and tangible assets providing it is for the right reason. Funds might be required for expansion, deposit on a new machine, an MBO or an MBI.

The balance sheet of the business must be reasonable and the business must have been trading for more than three years. Providing there is a strong rationale for the refinance and the equipment has good value we have a very good chance of obtaining some funding. Businesses which are struggling and need to refinance kit because they  and are struggling to pay creditors may still be able to obtain funding but it will be via a very different type of lender.

Normally it is possible to provide an indication of what is available within 24 hours. All we need to get the ball rolling is a list of plant and machinery to include age make and model. We can then get a value of the kit for refinancing purposes which enables a quick assessment of the viability of the refinance. XL Business Finance is one of the Uks leading funders in asset finance and refinance and we have 15 years experience in doing such deals.