Businesses need a steady flow of cash to operate. Having accounts receivable on the books mean customers owe the business money, but waiting for payments on accounts receivable is not always an option for a business. One obvious solution is to get a commercial loan but this is often a slow and difficult process with an uncertain outcome.
An alternative solution is invoice factoring. That is selling invoice(accounts receivable) at a discount (less than face value). The company buying the invoices provides needed capital to the seller while making a profit from the invoice discounting from their face value.
Basic factoring has been a common business practice for nearly 4000 years. Today, modern factoring solutions help small businesses obtain short-term capital to improve and maintain cash flow and to grow. There are three major differences among invoice factoring and commercial loans. First, factoring is based on the value of the invoices as opposed to company’s credit worthiness. Second, factoring is the purchase of the accounts receivable invoices not a loan. Third, a bank loan has two parties while factoring has three. These are: the seller of the receivables; the party that owes the debt, the debtor; and party buying the receivables, known as the factor. The factor is usually a specialized financial organization. The receivable is a financial asset based on the debtors liability to pay money owed to the seller for some type of service provided or goods sold.
The factoring transaction has three parts: one, the advance, a percentage of the discounted total of the invoices sold; two, the reserve, the remainder of the discounted invoice amount held until payment is made by the debtor; and three, the fee, the costs of the transaction is deducted from the remainder before being paid to the seller. The factor may also estimate an uncollectible amount and make an adjustment for that as well.
The seller benefits because there is no loan to payback and the cash became available more Quickly than otherwise would have been the case. The factor is responsible for collecting the payments made by the debtors. The factor’s profit is the difference between the price paid for the invoice and the amount collected from the debtor, less the amount lost due to non-payment if any. The factor may also charge the seller a service fee based on the amount of time it took to collect from the debtor.