About Invoice Funding
What are invoices or receivables?
Invoices, also known as accounts receivables, are the bills you give to your customer for them to pay you in the future. Often times, companies provide services to their customers but don’t receive payment right away. In this case the business would issue invoices to the customers. Think of a receivable or invoice as “pay me later”, while cash is “pay me now”.
What is invoice factoring?
Companies that issue invoices to their customers must wait to be paid. With invoice factoring, those companies can sell that invoice to a factoring company for a small discounted price, and the factoring company then collects from the customer. Learn more about invoice factoring.
How does factoring invoices work?
Once your customers have been approved for their credit worthiness and ability to pay, the terms will be laid out by the factoring company for you to negotiate and sign. Provided your customers pass credit, they’ll advance up to 80-90% of your outstanding invoices. The difference of 10-20% is usually held for a month and then released, minus a small factoring fee. Factoring fees are anywhere from 0.90% – 3% of gross receivable amount, per month.
What is invoice financing?
Unlike invoice factoring, where a factoring company purchases the invoice directly, invoice financing is when a factoring company provides a short-term loan to the client, and the loan is collateralized by invoices from your customers. Think of it as borrowing money against your invoices. Because invoice financing is a loan, invoice factoring is less risky to the business owner. Learn more about invoice financing.
Is invoice factoring a loan?
No, selling your invoices for immediate cash is not a loan, there is no interest on it and it will not effect your credit score if the receivable doesn’t pay. However, that’s not to say you won’t be liable if the receivable doesn’t pay. Invoice financing however may be a loan, because the factoring company doesn’t purchase the invoice directly; rather, they lend against the invoices.
Recourse vs. Non-Recourse Factoring
If you sell your invoice to a factoring company and the customer doesn’t pay the invoice, you are not liable if you have a non-recourse factoring deal. However, if you sell the invoice to the factoring company, the customer doesn’t pay and you are found liable to come up with those funds, it’s called “recourse” factoring.