The ability to obtain cash against your unpaid invoice can have a massive affect on your businesses cash flow and hence your ability to trade. Invoice financing is the generic term for factoring and invoice discounting both of which will release up to 80% of your unpaid invoices. The remaining 20% is paid when your customer pays you less any charges due to the invoice discounting company. As cash becomes more and more tight we understand that credit terms are being stretched further and further. Invoice financing is the perfect solution to ease your Cashflow and unlike a bank overdraft the facility is not repayable on demand and will grow with your business.
However there is a subtle difference between factoring and invoice discounting. Whilst both products release cash against your total debtor book factoring usually provides credit control as an additional service and invoice discounting is usually provided on a confidential basis. Which facility is best for your business depends on your own requirements and trading performance. XL Business Finance is one of the countries leading factoring and invoice discounting brokers and we have been helping businesses for over ten years obtain the most appropriate funding partner. You wouldn’t go to your butcher for open heart surgery so why go to your bank for finance advise. We believe that we are more qualified and better placed to help a business choose the best funding partner.
As invoice discounting is usually provided on a confidential basis this means that your customers are unaware that you are discounting your invoices. The finance company is unable to call your customers and verify the amount of your invoices. therefore invoice discounting is deemed to be a more risky facility and as such is usually only available for profitable more established businesses that have th necessary controls and procedure in place. Factoring however is conducted in a more open way and as such the finance company can call your customers to check invoice amounts and as such it is a facility more widely available.
