Debt factoring and invoice discounting: the basics

Introduction

Debt factoring involves selling your invoices to a third party. In return they will process the invoices and allow you to draw loans against the money owed to your business. Essentially, these companies provide a debt collection and ledger management service.

It is commonly used by businesses to improve cashflow but can also be used to reduce administration overheads. Businesses that supply this service are called factors or debt factoring companies.

Invoice discounting is an alternative way of drawing money against your invoices. However, your business retains control over the administration of your sales ledger. As well as providing finance, which is probably the main attraction, it offers valuable support services and credit insurance.

This guide gives information on how debt factoring and invoice discounting work, the advantages and disadvantages, different types of factoring and invoice discounting, the cost, and how to choose a factor or discounter.

Subjects covered in this guide

• Introduction
• How debt factoring works
• Advantages and disadvantages of factoring
• What makes a business suitable for factoring?
• Recourse factoring and non-recourse factoring
• Invoice discounting
• The cost of factoring and invoice discounting
• Export factoring
• Supplier finance
• How to choose a factor
• Here's how debt factoring improved my cashflow

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