Friday, June 11, 2010

What is Invoice Discounting

Invoice discounting is a common finance tool or arrangement with a finance company or bank. It allows the bank to advance monies to a business against its debtors (customers) thus helping cash flow.

This very attractive option in financing your business is somewhat overlooked, however it is a safe, cost effective and fast way to insure that your company has a good and solid cash flow.

This could be an extremely viable funding option available to companies that provide a product or service on credit terms to their customers. The purpose of the finance is to give you access to immediate funds, without having to wait for the customer to pay the invoice. This is particularly beneficial to those of you who are in a growth period and committing more working capital to customer credit \ debtors.

The company lending you the money will agree that for all invoices raised you will have a certain percentage available of the value of the invoice at you disposal. You do not necessarily have to utlisie the full available amount (credit limit) immidiately but have the assurance that you can draw on the facility when needed.It can therefore act similar to an overdraft just with the added advantage that it is not directly influences by collateral as per bank requirements.

The process of getting a credit limit in place is actually very simple: The ‘factor’ (the lending company) is disclosed to all of your customers, with your customers paying the factor direct. The factor will collect all amounts due and offset this amount against your account. The balance of the invoice will be paid into your account, less the fee and interest.

To obtain such a facility you can log onto www.fogwell.co.za