What is Invoice Discounting, Invoice Factoring, Debt Factoring and Invoice Finance?

There are differences in the service levels provided by these companies and some companies will not deal with turnover under £500,000 per annum. Invoice discounting will only suit companies who have a strong credit control system in place and just require cash quickly, factoring and invoice finance also provide credit control and chase payments for you. Some companies will expect you to place all your invoices with them and others allow you to select customers saving you the fees payable for the service. All schemes are paid for by varying percentages of the invoice value.

Who are the players in this market ?

They include most high street banks such as Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, HBOS, Hitachi, RBS, NatWest, Santander and specialist finance companies such as Venture Finance, Bibby Financial Services, Simply Business, Ultimate Finance and Ashley Financial Services, this is not a full list there are many more all offering different levels of service and all the scheme names are offering similar cash flow advantages.

Our choice

Ashley Financial Services, the friend of small business, who are independent offer a cost effective service to small businesses with turnover up to £3 million and allow customers to cherry pick the invoices they wish to “invoice finance” therefore avoiding the charges on the rest, they do credit checks from the legal department and chase your cash flow allowing you to get on with your business, check out their services Ashley offer non-status and subprime invoice finance to customers with poor credit history or weak accounts. If you are looking for a larger independent corporate facility you can try Ultimate Finance who offer invoice discounting, factoring and asset finance.