Receivables Financing — Types & Benefits for MSMEs

What is Receivables financing?

Receivables financing refers to various methods that a company might employ to obtain cash against sums due to it by customers in unpaid bills, often known as trade receivables financing or accounts receivable financing. A company can get payments sooner by financing its receivables, allowing it to invest in business development and innovation.

Receivables Financing Types

Businesses can choose from various different types of receivables financing alternatives, including:

Factoring:

Factoring is a type of financing in which a firm sells its receivables to a third party known as the factor. Typically, the firm will get between 70% and 90% of the value of the selected receivables from the factor at the outset. At maturity, the factor will collect payment from the firm’s clients and transfer the leftover cash to the company (minus a fee). Reverse factoring or supply chain financing in which the buyer begins an early payment scheme for its suppliers is not to be confused with factoring.

Invoice Discounting:

The critical distinction between invoice discounting and factoring is that the corporation is still responsible for collecting payments from clients. As a result, invoice discounting is usually done behind the company’s back, with consumers unaware of the practice.

Asset-based lending:

Unlike invoice factoring, which involves selling receivables, asset-based lending (ABL) allows businesses to receive loans based on assets like accounts receivable. Other assets, such as inventory or equipment, can also be used as collateral for ABL.

The phrase ‘accounts receivable finance,’ or ‘AR financing,’ is also occasionally used, however, it has various connotations for different persons. Accounts receivable finance is sometimes used interchangeably with trade receivables financing. Others may refer to it as a synonym for factoring or a sort of asset-based financing.

4 Benefits of Receivables Financing

Fast Access

Late payments and unanticipated costs can throw your organization into disarray and make it difficult to recover. Without having to harass your clients for prompt payment, accounts receivable financing helps you to transform invoices or credit sales into cash right immediately.

Create a Fundbox account to relieve your financial burden. Fundbox advances the full amount of your invoice and keeps your client connections intact. While you wait for bills, Fundbox funding will cover expenditures like payroll and rent.

You may put the money toward purchasing more merchandise, hiring a new salesman, or marketing your business to new clients.

Keep Your Equity:

Venture financing may help your organization grow significantly, but it comes at a high cost. In exchange for their investment, venture capitalists want a large ownership in your firm. It may appear to be a fantastic deal right now, but it’s a contract that might limit your company’s future growth.

You don’t need to bring in investors if you have consistent cash flow. Because accounts receivable finance does not demand any stock in your firm, you retain complete ownership.

Small business-friendly:

Traditional lenders need collateral, a good credit score, and a capital requirement of greater than $100,000 to get a loan. It might take bank weeks, if not months, to establish your company’s creditworthiness.

Trade receivable financing is a sort of unsecured loan that does not need personal or corporate assets as security. It only takes a few days, if not hours, to get approved, and you can request as much or as little money as you need. The online application for Fundbox takes only minutes to complete. You may advance invoices and get cash in your bank account the next day once you’ve been approved.

Less Stress:

You’ll have the peace of mind you need to focus on more essential things, like building your business, with quick and easy access to working cash. It will also relieve stress on your staff members charged with collecting late payments and provide your consumers with more repayment choices. Less stress equals more profit.

How receivables finance works

When businesses offer goods or services to buyers, they frequently do so on credit, which means the customer does not have to pay until a later date. This helps the client, but it might pose cash flow concerns for suppliers that aren’t cash-wealthy, making it difficult to fulfill customer orders or invest in business growth in the short term.

Receivables financing can help businesses bridge this gap. Companies that use receivables finance can minimize the time between acquiring raw materials and getting payment from consumers by allowing early payment of bills before their due date. They could also be in a better position to spend in R&D, innovation, and growth.

Receivables finance process

In the case of factoring, the receivables financing process may look like this:

Buyer purchases items from the seller.

The seller sends the customer an invoice.

The invoice is sold to the factor by the seller.

The factor gives the seller a cash advance of 70% to 90% of the invoice amount.

The buyer settles the bill.

The remainder is sent to the vendor after fees are subtracted.

Why TReDS on M1xchange?

RBI Regulated institutional mechanism.

Funds get credited to the supplier account in T+1 days.

Suppliers can choose the best factoring companies on parameters such as transparency, customer confidentiality, factoring rates, and fees.

Alternate, efficient funding system for making vendor payments.

Quick finance of trade receivables at moderate rates.

Financiers can fulfill PSL targets efficiently in less time.