THE INFORMATION REVOLUTION HAS CREATED
A SME FINANCING REVOLUTION
Twenty years of FinTech innovation has brought a wide range of smart, integrated SME Financing products to market – products that solve many historic small business financing challenges. They free up your Working Capital so you can build your business productivity and reduce your cash flow stress.
4 KEY WORKING CAPITAL TOOLSETS MAKE SME FINANCING EASIER
Today’s top tools enable smart small business operators to maximise the cash available in their business. They fall into four key product offering groups. These tools work best when combined into a robust Working Capital Strategy and supported by good financial disciplines designed specifically for your business.
Debtor Finance
Are you endlessly juggling bills and supplier payments while you wait for your customers to pay you?
Today’s affordable, automated debtor and invoice finance tools offer you low-risk immediate access to funds you’ve already invoiced.
Trade Finance
Don’t limit your business growth because too much of your money is in your suppliers’ bank accounts.
The right trade finance means you can use the majority of the money committed to your vendors while you wait to be paid.
Working Capital
Don’t stay small because of the gap between your short term assets and your short term liabilities.
The right working capital finance will enable you to grow your business and pay your bills – without constant stress and crises.
Receivables Management
Turn your unpaid invoices into immediate cash AND set yourself free from debt collection tasks – for good!
Receivables Management Finance is a practical, efficient approach to cash flow management so you can grow your business faster.
Are you tired of constantly chasing customer invoices? Are you sick of endlessly cutting back on necessary expenditure to patch over stressful cash flow gaps? Then it could be time to book your FREE Working Capital Strategy Review – and find out what today’s top tools could do to maximise your business productivity.
TALK TO A WORKING
CAPITAL STRATEGIST
FUND YOUR BUSINESS FROM YOUR BALANCE SHEET – NOT YOUR PERSONAL ASSETS
Are you funding your 21st century business using 20th century big bank financing tools? You could be missing out on a range of business opportunities!
Most small businesses default to some fairly old-style forms of financing.
- They use personal assets to get a bank loan – from the bank that funds their personal mortgage.
- They supplement their big bank business loan with extras from “the bank of family and friends”.
- They top up their cash flow with high-cost loans and credit cards.
These strategies may be the ones that most SME operators know about – but they’re increasingly out-of-date in the third decade of the 21st century. They trap businesses in a 20th century Cash Gap that increases operator stress and reduces business productivity.
NO AMOUNT OF "BETTER CASH MANAGEMENT" CAN FIX YOUR INDUSTRY’S STRUCTURAL CASH GAP
All the administrative best practice in the world can’t change the impact of “baked-in” credit terms with long payment periods – 30/60/90 days – even if all your customers paid perfectly on time.
Long credit terms will still have you waiting weeks – and even months – for a big customer to pay a big invoice. During that time, payroll still has to be made, the ATO wants their due, and your suppliers have to be paid to buy materials for your next job.
Even good businesses that show excellent profits at the end of the financial year can operate in an environment of recurrent, stressful, productivity-killing periods of cash flow drought.
THE COSTS OF THE CASH TRAP ARE HEAVY AND CUMULATIVE
If you don’t have sufficient working capital in your business, then you can end up:
- Not being able to pay suppliers on time – and possibly being put on credit hold.
- Constantly juggling expenses and trying to make it through the week.
- Not being able to take advantage of bulk purchase and early payment discounts.
- Not being able to invest in up-to-date equipment and infrastructure.
- Missing out on new business opportunities that need money to access them.
- Not being able to action business innovation.
- Not paying YOURSELF for all the work you do.
IS YOUR BUSINESS STUCK IN A CASH TRAP?
Talk to us about how you can get back in the driver's seat
WHICH MODERN FINANCE PRODUCTS SHOULD YOU CHOOSE?
None!
If someone tells you straight up that “XYZ product” is THE ANSWER – run!!
No one can tell you the “right” product for your needs until AFTER they’ve done a Working Capital Analysis of how cash flows through your business AND delivered a Working Capital Strategy that’s designed for your business (not your cousin’s brother’s wife’s SME).
It doesn’t have to be a long document or a time-consuming process – but it does have to be based on your business, your goals, your customers and your supply chain.
Martin Cattach is an expert Working Capital Strategist
Over more than 15 years in the business finance field, Martin has analysed the finances of thousands of businesses.
His decades of experience in the finance industry, Information Technology – AND in small business – uniquely equip him to assist SME businesses to select and implement the best finance solutions for their needs.
Martin will quickly built a Working Capital Cash Flow plan that will take the financial stress out of your business operations and free up the funds you need to grow your business impact.
TALK TO A WORKING
CAPITAL STRATEGIST
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
The costs vary depending on the product and your strategy. Typically, you’ll pay a single, up-front loan establishment fee, plus a monthly service fee.
On top of that will be interest on the invoices you raise – which applies only until your customer pays you.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Yes, there IS a small administration overhead – because you need to reconcile customer payments, loan fees and loan amounts. However, the interfacing and the payment process are automatic.
This happens – and while there is a process to go through, it can be well worth doing.
The responsive finance product range is developing rapidly so I recommend:
- reviewing your Working Capital and Finance strategy when daylight savings changes over (every 6 months).
- writing an exit plan as part of your initial Receivables Management Finance implementation strategy.
Perhaps – some products allow you to use “partial ledger finance” – and borrow against just some of your customers (perhaps the big customers who demand long credit terms). Other products will take over all your Debtors.
Yes. That’s why you need to:
- Be strategic about how you use the extra funds you gain access to – use them to grow your business.
- Consider a price increase to cover the extra costs – after all, your customers are essentially borrowing money from your business.
