Accounts Receivable Factoring is sometimes called “Invoice Factoring.” It refers to the process of when a business sells unpaid invoices to an accounts receivable factoring company or a “Factor” for a discount rate. It is now the job of the factoring company to collect the payment from your customer. Once the factoring company collects from the client, they pay the small business owner the remainder of the invoice amount, minus factoring fees.

Invoice factoring loans are a solution for small business owners who experience a long lapse between when a service is rendered and when the invoice is paid. This type of financial transaction allows the business owner to receive payment on their accounts receivables sooner.

MAX FUNDING AMOUNT: $10K – $10M
FACTOR RATES: Starting at 1% p/mo
TERM: Up to 24 months
SPEED: 1-2 Weeks

Accounts receivable financing carries very different requirements than other business financing products. This is because factoring companies are more concerned with the creditworthiness of your customer, not you. Therefore, you do not need an excellent credit history or perfect cash flow to access this product. Accessibility depends more on your customer’s perceived ability to pay within a reasonable time frame. If the factoring company isn’t sure your customer will pay or believes it will be tough to collect the payment, you may not get approved.
These factors also determine the percentage of the invoice that the factoring company purchases, along with your factoring fee. In most cases, the factoring company will purchase up to 85%-90% of the invoice. You would receive this money in just a few business days instead of several weeks or months.

Each factoring company has its fee policy for the second payment, which occurs when the factoring company collects from your customer. Generally, if the factor rate is lower, the fee for the second payment will be higher.

Yes, you lose a little bit of income. That’s the price you pay for receiving money immediately and relinquishing the responsibility of collecting the payment.

An Example of Invoice Factoring

So when you sell your accounts receivables to a third-party factoring company, the discounted purchase price gets calculated using what’s known as a factor rate. Here’s an example.

Let’s say you sold $20,000 of outstanding receivables. And let’s say the factor rate is 3%. The purchase price of your receivables would then be $20,000 less minus the factor rate. So you’d receive 97% of $20,000. This means the factor would buy your receivables for $19,400.

However, this does not mean you would receive $19,400 immediately. Instead, you’re more likely to receive an upfront advance. For our example, let’s use 85% of the purchase price. So you would receive $16,490 now.
And then, once the factor collects on your receivables, you’d receive the remaining 15% (that works out to $2,910) of the purchase price of your receivables.

Receivables Factoring – Research, Facts, and Reports

Recent research predicts the global invoice factoring market to reach $9.27 trillion by 2025. Source: Adroit Market Research

Accounts receivable financing is forecast to rise globally at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 11.03 percent through 2020. Source: American Express: Factoring is Boosting Trade & Supply Chain Finance

Researchers forecast the international receivables factoring market to grow by 15.8% from 2018 to 2025. Source: Adroit Market Research: Global Factoring Market 2019 – 2025 Analysis

Like other types of working capital loans, receivables factoring is available for companies with less-than-perfect credit histories and rocky cash flow. As long as your client has paid its bills in the past, you probably won’t have trouble getting approved.

To understand this product’s most significant advantages, you must first consider the consequences of late-paying customers. The longer an invoice goes unpaid, the less profitable the sale becomes. It’s like unsold inventory sitting on your shelves. Your company is continuing to spend money while less money is flowing in. Even a two-week difference in the payment cycle can significantly impact profitability. If most of your clients pay at the end of the month, most of this money will likely go right into monthly bills. Profitability increases when you have more time to plug money back into your business before covering operational expenses.

In addition to money, factoring services save you time chasing down your clients. Once you sell the invoice, you can stop sending emails daily and possibly jeopardize the partnership.

On that note, there’s a common misconception that factoring companies will relentlessly bother your clients until they pay up. This couldn’t be further from the truth. If you work with a company like JMJ COMMERCIAL , your client base won’t even find out you sold the invoice in the first place.

Accounts Receivable Factoring is a form of near-term financing. Though it’s difficult to compare this product to traditional options like bank financing with a low interest rate, any short-term funding is not considered cheap. This is primarily due to the aforementioned loose requirements and fee system. For instance, merchant cash advances also have a factor rate and are, therefore, expensive by nature.

Also, you won’t get approved for accounts receivable financing if your customer appears unreliable. Collecting from this customer will probably be difficult if a customer has already missed the due date by several weeks. For this reason, accounts receivable factoring works best for established customers with many partners. Lesser-known small businesses don’t have the reputations or business credit profiles of their larger competitors.

Lastly, accounts receivable financing is far from the only solution for late-paying customers. Sometimes, simple tactics like sending more than one invoice per month are all you need to get customers to pay on time. Hence, you should only pursue accounts receivable factoring if you’ve explored other logical solutions for this cash flow issue.

Approved businesses generally met the following criteria:

ANNUAL REVENUE: $250K
CREDIT SCORE: 550+
TIME IN BUSINESS: 1 year+

At JMJ COMMERCIAL , we can work out arrangements with finance companies for as much as $10 million of receivables, with factor rates starting at 5.8%. The funding process usually takes up to two weeks. Here’s how to apply:

An essential requirement for factoring companies in factoring invoices is the reliability of your customer. Before contacting a factoring company, you must be 100% certain that your customer will pay their invoices within a reasonable time frame.

To apply, the finance company will need the following documents and information to see if factoring invoices is appropriate:

• • United States driver’s license
• • Voided business check
• • Bank statements from the past three months
• • Business tax returns
• • Account Receivable Aging report, Accounts Payable report, debt schedule

You can begin the application process by giving us a call or filling out our one-page online application. Either way, you’ll be asked to enter the information from the previous section and the value of the invoice amount you wish to sell.

Once you apply, a representative will contact you to explain the factoring fee, factor rate, and terms attached to the sale. This way, you won’t have to worry about any hidden fees during each payment.

The entire process takes about 2 weeks, and once the transaction is approved, funds should appear in your bank account in 1-2 business days after completion.