A £400,000 Invoice Discounting Facility to Help a Client Grow
Over the past few years, Invoice Finance, in the shape of either Invoice Discounting or Invoice Factoring has grown in popularity as a way of improving cash flow and helping businesses grow. There are many suppliers in the market place for this type of finance, all offering slightly different terms, and it can be difficult to find the best one.
At Senate Money we use our experience to source the best invoice discounting facility for the needs of your business. This case study details a £400,000 invoice discounting facility we sourced for a client.
The details of this business’s need for Invoice Discounting
This client is a family business, based in the South East, providing temporary and permanent staff to a range of clients throughout the UK, including cleaning contracts, static security, red carpet and event security. The business places 80 to 250 staff every week for local councils, blue chip companies, charitable organisations and major events, such as festivals and marathons.
Rapid growth in recent years has presented its own problems, not least cashflow pressures. The business contacted Senate Money for help and advice on how to improve its cashflow. Invoice discounting was our recommendation.
The Business is Strong on Customer Service
The MD says that “We pride ourselves on being available to all clients. No matter how big or small they are, our doors are open 24/7, 365 days of the year. There’s always someone on the end of the phone, which gives our customers confidence in our capabilities.”
Operations directors and managers based across the UK work remotely from home – a growing model among many SMEs in the UK looking to benefit from efficiencies found through modern digitally focused working practices.
“With the exception of head office staff who deal with administration and HR, having our staff based from home creates flexibility enabling us to be available for our clients at all times. We have a state-of-the-art telephone system in place which allows calls to be answered by the team from their home offices and the whole model works really well for us.”
Empowering the team in this way encourages the staff to repay the business with high levels of commitment. All team members work hard and remote working unquestionably helps as they spend less time travelling to and from the office and more time doing what they do best - looking after clients.
This commitment to customer service has seen the business grow quickly, and is on target to triple its turnover from c.£600,000 in April 2014 to c£1.8million by March 2017. However, this rapid growth has presented challenges in relation to cash flow. The last thing a successful, growing business needs is cash flow difficulties that could easily constrain things, which is where invoice discounting come in.
This Client Now Uses an Invoice Discounting Facility We Sourced and Negotiated
Click here to see the difference between Invoice Discounting and Invoice Factoring. Both can be hugely beneficial in improving cashflow which is the reason why this business uses such a facility. The main benefit is that the facility provides a guaranteed steady flow of working capital, enabling the business to operate more efficiently and grow.
As the client points out, although many of its clients are prompt payers, the problems with cash flow tend to occur at peak periods when the average payroll is much higher. Given that 90% of staff are paid weekly, the potential for difficulties occurring quickly was always there, despite the success of the business.
“This is why we began looking for a finance solution which suits our changing funding requirements at different times of the year. We found Senate Money who introduced us to factoring and sourced a suitable provider, which has made things much easier."
The facility we negotiated was for £400,000.
If your business could benefit from invoice discounting, contact us or call us 01675 443878 for an initial chat.