Borrowing money from your bank using uncollected bills from your clients as collateral is called debt factoring. This is a process by which a business can get to use money that is owed to them before they collect the debt or credit. Usually it is done with thirty and sixty day bills. It is also done with bills that are signed by your good clients.
Debt factoring provides you with money to replenish your inventories with the same materials you sold to the person owing the bill. In fact they can be used for any purpose, but that is what this money should be used for. New inventories to replenish those that have been sold on credit will perpetuate the company’s sales and production abilities.
You must not factor all your company’s debt because even though you are getting immediate funds for fifteen, thirty or whatever day sales you are still losing some of it through the banks commission. It is important to factor only the amount of money that you need immediately. That way you will have the funds required to continue working and you reduce loses due to bank commissions.
They have an advantage over local factoring though. When you give an international company credit on goods and services they must provide you with collateral in the form of a Bank Guarantee or a Standby Letter of Credit that guarantees your payment on a specific date. This payment is guaranteed by the bank issuing the instrument. The factoring company’s money is safe protected by the financial instrument.
They are not running any risks because the banking instrument guarantees their money and therefor the commission you are paying them. You on the other hand are getting the money that you need to replenish your materials and product reserves, you will lose a small percentage by paying the factoring entity. You would lose much more if you did not have any product to sell.
Most banking instruments are acceptable for factoring. Many of them are issued by strange little banks from all corners of the Earth. These little banks have their own treaties with larger world banks which guarantee that the smaller banks paper is good and negotiable and so on and so forth are fortunes made in this world.
It is a constant circle that never ends because with the money you get you are able to buy more products which you again sell on credit and again factor the debt. The banks are the happiest people in this circle because they are making a commission out of every operation done by every client. They have all the inside information so they have no real risk when it comes to buying debt.
Debt factoring is a method of stabilizing the cash flow in your business by the practice of invoice discounting. You get the benefit of revenue from sales immediately and none of the hassle of bad debt collection.