Invoice finance, in the forms that matter.
Every facility we help arrange does the same fundamental thing: it releases cash against invoices you have already raised. The differences are in who collects, who knows, and how much of your ledger is involved.
All solutions
- The umbrella term
Invoice Finance
A way for businesses that sell on credit terms to access a proportion of the value of unpaid invoices before customers pay.
- Best suited to
- B2B businesses invoicing on credit terms
- Funding basis
- A proportion of eligible unpaid invoices
- Main variants
- Factoring, discounting, selective
- Typical use
- Working capital, growth, payroll, suppliers
- Funding plus collections
Invoice Factoring
Release cash against unpaid invoices while the provider manages credit control and collects payment from your customers.
- Credit control
- Usually managed by the provider
- Customer awareness
- Typically disclosed
- Often suits
- Smaller or growing firms, lean back offices
- Common add-on
- Bad debt protection
- Funding, you keep control
Invoice Discounting
Draw funds against your sales ledger while continuing to run your own credit control, often without customers being aware.
- Credit control
- Retained by your business
- Customer awareness
- Often confidential
- Often suits
- Established firms with robust systems
- Typical requirement
- Reliable ledger management
- Fund what you choose
Selective Invoice Finance
Finance individual invoices or specific customers as the need arises, rather than committing your whole sales ledger.
- Commitment
- Invoice by invoice, or customer by customer
- Suits
- Occasional, seasonal or project cash-flow needs
- Flexibility
- High
- Cost per invoice
- Often higher than whole-ledger facilities
Three questions that usually settle it
The right structure follows from how your business operates. These questions narrow it down quickly.
- 01
Would you like someone else to chase payment?
If credit control is a burden, factoring provides the funding and the collections service together.
Invoice factoring - 02
Do you want to keep customers unaware and stay in control?
If your ledger and processes are sound, invoice discounting keeps collections with you and can often be confidential.
Invoice discounting - 03
Is the need occasional rather than ongoing?
A selective facility lets you fund particular invoices or customers without committing the whole ledger.
Selective invoice finance
Optional additions such as bad debt protection, and related products such as asset-based lending, can sometimes sit alongside these facilities. We raise them only where relevant.
Same principle. Different day-to-day.
Both release cash against unpaid invoices. The difference is who runs credit control, whether your customers know, and what that means for cost and control.
Invoice factoring
Funding plus collections
- Who collects payment
- The provider's credit control team
- Customer awareness
- Usually disclosed
- Control of customer relationships
- Shared with the provider
- Demands on your systems
- Lower
- Service fee
- Generally higher, reflecting the collections service
- Often suits
- Smaller or growing firms, lean back offices
Invoice discounting
Funding, you keep control
- Who collects payment
- Your own team
- Customer awareness
- Often confidential, subject to provider criteria
- Control of customer relationships
- Retained by your business
- Demands on your systems
- Higher: accurate ledger and reporting expected
- Service fee
- Generally lower
- Often suits
- Established firms with strong processes
Not sure which is appropriate?
Most businesses know within one conversation. Some move from one to the other as they grow.
Find out whether invoice finance could work for your business.
Tell us a little about your business and what you are looking to achieve. We will come back to you with a straightforward view of the options.
No obligation. We will tell you plainly if invoice finance does not look like the right answer.