Your money is already earned.
It is just sitting in someone else’s account

There are normally two charges and people routinely compare only the first. A service charge is a percentage of turnover put through the facility, covering the admin and collections. A discount charge is interest on the money you have actually drawn, usually quoted over base rate. Add both before comparing anything, and ask what happens to the service charge if you put less through than forecast.

On most facilities, you do. Standard invoice finance is with recourse, meaning the provider takes the advance back from you if the debt goes bad. Non-recourse exists and costs more, and even then the cover is usually capped and conditional. Read that clause before you read the rate.

Not instantly. Notice periods are commonly three to twelve months and some facilities have a minimum term as well. This is the single most common complaint about invoice finance and the thing we check for you before you sign.

Possibly. Providers set concentration limits, so if one customer is a large share of your ledger the facility against them is usually capped. It is worth knowing before you build a cash flow plan around the full amount.

You need to invoice other businesses on credit terms. If you are paid on the spot by the public, there is no ledger to lend against and revenue-based funding is the one that fits instead. There are nine providers on our panel, from clearing banks to specialists.

Some providers will, and it is called selective or spot finance. It costs more per pound than a whole-turnover facility and ties you in far less, which makes it the right answer when one large customer is the whole problem rather than your ledger generally.

It appears on the balance sheet as a liability while the advance is outstanding, so yes for most practical purposes — your accountant and any future lender will treat it as borrowing. What it is not is new money: you are being paid earlier for work already done.

The facility is searched and reported like any other credit agreement. The part people are surprised by is the debenture, which is registered at Companies House and is public, so anyone running a check on you can see a charge is in place.

Sometimes, but the debenture is the obstacle rather than the appetite. A provider taking a floating charge over the book debts will usually want the bank to waive or rank behind it, and that is a conversation between them. Tell us what you already have in place and we will work round it.

Longer than people expect. Minimum terms of twelve months are common and notice periods run three to twelve months on top, so leaving can take the best part of a year from the day you decide to. The termination fee sits alongside it.

Yes, and plenty do, but it is a refinance rather than a change of supplier: the new provider settles the old facility, takes over the ledger and registers its own debenture. Start by reading your notice period, because that sets the earliest date anything can happen.

Different, not better. A facility grows as you invoice more, which a fixed loan cannot do, and it is secured on money you are already owed. But it usually involves a debenture over the company, it is more intrusive, and it is harder to walk away from. How it compares with the other options.