Ways to Lessen Costs in Invoice Discounting and Invoice Factoring
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012In our economic climate, everyone is on the lookout for financial savings and for businesses, invoice finance facilities such as invoice factoring and invoice discounting could be a good source of financial savings.
Listed here are 6 ways in which to lessen the costs of invoice factoring or invoice discounting:
1. Consider changing products – Depending on whether you are currently using invoice discounting or invoice factoring you might be able to make a cost saving by switching products. If you are currently using a factoring facility, and you’ve got existing resource within your business that could deal with credit control, it could be that you can spend less on your invoice finance costs by switching to an invoice discounting facility in which you do not get a credit control service as part of the facility. Therefore the facility can be affordable. Alternatively, should you be currently using invoice discounting and you have existing credit control staff in your business, by switching to invoice factoring you’re going to receive a credit control service included in the facility and this may enable you to reduce your staffing cost by not employing credit control staff.
2. Switch between selective and whole turnover invoice finance – It is usually on a “whole turnover” basis that a number of invoice factoring and invoice discounting facilities operate. This means that all of your invoices are automatically captured under the invoice finance arrangement and the charges will probably be determined as a percentage of the value of your invoicing. In times that you don’t have a consistent necessity for cash in your business like during seasonal trading peaks and there’s demand for funds, a selective facility that factors or discounts certain invoices and reduces the cost of the facility could possibly be your solution.
3. See the Bad Debt Protection – If you already have bad debt protection as part of an invoice factoring or invoice discounting facility you should assess the effectiveness of that cover. Consider how adequate your credit limits are which have granted by your invoice finance company. Look at any other provisions of the arrangement such as first loss clauses which mean that you are not going to be covered for the first part of any particular loss. In the event that your bad debt protection is not offering you adequate cover, you may wish to save some money on your invoice factoring or invoice discounting costs by moving to a recourse facility (where you do receive bad debt protection).
4. Lower the “other costs” involving invoice factoring or invoice discounting – There are a number of other charges that may be applied by the funder. A good example of this is if you take payments by CHAPS rather than BACS. A BACS transfer is usually provided without charge however, a BACS transfer will take longer to clear, and credit funds to your account, than a CHAPS transfer. For you not to shell out much to your facility when you thinking about cash flow requirements, consider using one to the other. Its also wise to review the additional fees detailed on the statement provided by your invoice finance company (normally monthly). You can identify the type of other charge you are incurring and seek to bring them down. For example, if you are being charged re-factoring fees, according of overdue debts, it could be economical to spend a while chasing these invoices in yourself, in order to avoid paying these penalty fees.
5. See the exclusions – Most invoice finance companies manage to exclude certain transactions from your invoice factoring or invoice discounting facility, even if it is operated over a whole turnover basis. For example, some types of transactions may be of no interest to the factor so they may exclude them which may also been referred to as not notifying those particular transactions. If you have specific, identifiable parts of your business’ invoicing you can manage without receiving funding against e.g. particular customers or forms of transactions, you might consider asking the invoice finance company to allow you to make those non-notifiable, or excluded, under the terms of the facility. This may prevent you from needing to pay a fee according of those particular varieties of invoices.
6. Shop around and renegotiate – There are a variety of providers of both invoice factoring and invoice discounting facilities. It is a competitive market and a new provider will often be able to quote to you better rates than your existing facility. Same task goes with your existing provider against the market, they are ready to negotiate your existing rates for them to retain you.


