What is Factoring?
Factoring is the financial tool that speeds businesses' cash flow. To do this, factors purchase your credit-worthy accounts receivable at a small discount and convert your invoices (sales) into immediate cash. Partnering with a factor can relieve the problem that slow paying customers can create.
Factoring is not a loan. There is no debt repayment, no compromise to your balance sheet, no long-term agreements or delays associated with other methods of raising capital. Factoring allows you to use your own hard earned assets to create cash for the growth needs of your company.
Factoring differs from a bank loan in three main ways. First, the emphasis is on the value of the receivables, not the firm’s credit worthiness. Secondly, factoring is not a loan – it is the purchase of a financial asset (the receivable). Finally, a bank loan involves two parties whereas factoring involves three.
Factors often provide their clients four key services: information on the creditworthiness of their prospective customers domestic and international; maintain the history of payments by customers (i.e., accounts receivable ledger); daily management reports on collections; and, make the actual collection calls. The outsourced credit function both extends the small firms effective addressable marketplace and insulates it from the survival-threatening destructive impact of a bankruptcy or financial difficulty of a major customer. A second key service is the operation of the accounts receivable function. The services eliminate the need and cost for permanent skilled staff found within large firms. Although today even they are outsourcing such back-office functions. More importantly, the services insure the entrepreneurs and owners against a major source of a liquidity crises and their equity.
