We’re pretty sure, based on talking to clients, that thousands of Canadian business owners and financials managers start every Monday worrying about business financing and cash flow. A lot is being said these days about financing receivables as a subset of asset based lending in Canada.
But can a receivable factoring and funding strategy really save your company? And another thing, what’s a confidential invoice funding strategy and how does it work. A lot of questions! Let’s get some answers.
It is somewhat ironic that the growth your firm faces, which is clearly a good thing is offset by the need for more and more cash flow and working capital as you build receivables, and yes, inventories also. It’s a very simple gap – simply the time between being paid for your customers and the need to pay suppliers and your operating costs. In a perfect world (it’s not apparently) your suppliers would be willing to wait an unlimited amount of time. They don’t.
Therefore financing your receivables as you generate them provides you with cash flow needed – you are simply closing the proverbial gap in waiting for your clients funds.
In Canada you should expect, via a receivable finance strategy to receive in the area of 90% for your receivable funding as you submit invoices. What about that other 10%? It’s simply held back as a holdback or reserve to leave a buffer for financing costs and any short payments for your clients.
Financing costs. That’s the real discussion point these days on receivable factoring in Canada. Those costs range from 1- 5%. That’s a big range, so what defines that range. Typically the 4-5% range is defined by firms having very small receivable balances and who themselves are relatively small firms. A more typical range in Canada is 2%. While many clients view that as and interest rate on a 30 day basis it’s actually the discount your finance partner bases the purchase of your receivables on. So, utilizing a $100,000 dollar invoice as an example you should be expected to ultimately receive $ 98,000 for the invoice. That’s at settlement time when your client pays and you also receive the rest of the holdback we referred to.
So is that financing fee too much for your firm ?History tells us its not, in that your ability to generate more sales with the cash flow you receive daily usually significantly outweighs lost sales revenue , or , even worse, your ability not to meet your obligations to supplies or other creditors . The majority of clients we speak to are looking to grow their business and use a receivable factoring strategy as a tool to do that.
If you are looking at the traditional type of receivable finance facility in Canada that is offered there is one aspect that doesn’t appeal to many business owners, in that 99% of the firms in Canada who offer A/R finance require a notice to your client around this financing. That’s where a confidential invoice funding strategy works best, you bill and collect your own receivables, and your method of financing your firm is just that, yours, and no one else’s business.
So, can financing receivables save your company? We thing if it isn’t a matter of saving it’s a least a mechanism for growing, and that’s not a bad thing. To be honest though many firms that face financial challenges are often saved by an interim funding strategy such as ours when they cant obtain traditional bank type finance .
More info? Questions ? Speak to a trusted, credible and experienced Canadian business financing advisor on the benefits of a confidential invoice finance strategy.