At some point in your business venture, you may consider the idea of accounts receivable funding by a conventional bank. Even though both accounts receivable factoring and financing can be used to access finances swiftly for working capital, they do not hold the same meaning. Banks do not usually offer true accounts receivable factoring since they do not buy the invoices, but they use them as security for a loan. Here are the key differences in the two methods.

The chief difference between factoring and bank financing with accounts receivable involves the ownership of the invoices. Factors actually purchase your invoices at a discounted rate, while banks require you to guarantee or assign the invoices as guarantee for a loan. Similar to a factoring company, the bank evaluates your existing accounts receivable and decides the ones they will accept as security. If they do not like the customer’s terms of reimbursement or if the customer pays too slowly, they will not count those accounts receivables as security. The factor also examines your accounts receivables and is normally more relaxed on the ones they acknowledge, but they will naturally charge slightly higher fees on the invoice expenses that come in late. Obviously, the bank loan will and can have a negative impact on your credit score depending on your existing debt situation. It might be worth looking at your credit score before getting a loan. At least this way, you’ll be able to see what sort of impact your loan will have. If your credit score is already poor, it might be worth building it up before getting into more debt. By using credit cards, you can begin to improve your credit rating. To learn more about this method of credit building, this article here may be of use. However, since the factoring is not considered a loan, it will not affect your debt utilization or debt-to-equity ratio. If you are interested in finding out more about Factoring finance you might want to look into a business similar to Nova Business Finance or other finance companies.

The factor will give you an advance of around 75% to 85% on the invoices they factor and hold the rest in reserve. They pay you the reserve as your clients pay their invoices. Usually, you get 97% to 99% of your total accounts receivables after all expenses are collected and the 1% to 3% factoring fee is charged. Most banks only loan you 75% to 85% of the value of your invoices and they charge you an interest rate on the amount of the loan. This rate is usually higher than other types of business bank loans.

Both the financing methods can be useful to fund your business in an effective manner. It’s better to consult an expert so you can get a clear idea which works for you based on your business situation. These are both very good ways to make cash fast. But, what if you could get paid straight away without any hassle? Sounds good right? It’s simple really, make sure you have a well designed invoice template to eliminate any possible excuses for not paying.