Bay View Funding Blog

In general, cash flow management is one of the factors that determine the financial stability of any business. When customers delay or avoid paying invoices, any company could face cash flow difficulties. Invoice factoring enables businesses to sell outstanding invoices in return for working capital – the capital used daily in trading operations. For many, it can serve as a viable alternative to traditional bank loans and credit exhaustion.

According to Google Trends (see graph below), one of the hot trends in American business today is invoice factoring.

You see it online; even hear about it on television and the radio. But would it surprise you to learn that this way of creating cash flow for your business isn’t new? In fact, invoice factoring is over 2,000 years old!

Selecting the right factoring company for your business can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t need to be that way. In fact, the process is quite simple.

When we were young, wise adults taught us (if we were lucky) about “wants” and “needs” when choosing how to handle our money. “Needs,” we learned, took priority over “wants.”

Invoice factoring benefits medium and large businesses by reducing cash flow crunches and allowing for possible business expansion. One of the most important systems in any business is financing. There are several options for financing which include traditional cash advance options, such as loans, and alternative routes, such as invoice factoring. However, the use of traditional finance or cash advance systems may have challenges. For example, there may be restrictive guidelines that traditional lending entails. The time required to process, mail, and receive invoice payments may negatively affect both a business’ operational efficiency as well as the optimal use of resources.

Like many businesses juggling multiple 30 or 60 day outstanding invoices, you may find your business financially strained, especially when some customers wait up to 90 days to reconcile their bills. This may leave your business with limited working capital to cover administrative overhead, reduce existing debt, or even cover normal payroll costs. This is a situation that may be helped through invoice factoring or invoice discounting.

As a business owner, you want to take the next step and grow your company. For many small and mid-sized businesses, that means working on getting lucrative government contracts. Even if you’re lucky enough to get the work, actually doing it can be a real challenge, especially when it comes to things like invoicing and billing.

Cash flow is a perennial problem for many business owners especially those who provide services over products. The reason is simple: payment for services is usually made towards the end of the contract term and rarely up-front. Even payment for physical products is rarely done at the time of sale these days.