Quick Access to Working Capital

If you are aware of factor financing, you may know that you can leverage your Accounts Receivables with a Factoring Lender to get quick access to working capital. However, you may be concerned what your Customers will think when they have to send their payments to a different address.

  • Lending aspect aside, it is not unusual for Businesses to create a different location to receive payments on Invoices, whether a physical location or an electronic ACH location.
  • The Factoring Lender works hand in hand with you to ease the transition for payment destination on your Invoices.
  • Many of your Customers are already sending their Invoice payments for other B2B purchases to Factor Lenders whether they know it or not.
  • Factor Lending, while a niche financing solution, has been utilized by businesses in need of quick capital for 30 years.
  • Businesses frequently leverage Assets, Property, Income and other collateral to obtain working capital whether it’s a traditional Bank loan or other financing solution; leveraging your Invoices is no different.
  • The fact your business is borrowing money demonstrates strength, not weakness.  You’re demonstrating your faith in your business by borrowing money to continue to grow your business.

Factor Financing is an affordable, fast, financing solution to help you leverage important aspects of your business–in this case your Accounts Receivable–to obtain the working capital you need.  It’s easier to qualify for Factor Financing than traditional Bank Loans, especially during the pandemic paradigm when Banks are making loans difficult to obtain.

Factor Financing Qualifying Criteria:

  • You must sell your Product/Service B2B
  • Your Customers must pass muster for basic creditworthiness on their ability to pay Invoices
  • Non-Progressive Billing
  • Startups Acceptable
  • Consistent Accounts Receivable practice

Let us ease your worry about what your customers will think. Learn more to see how this could be a solution to keep your business going during this pandemic. Email us at Curious@AuroraConsulting.biz.

Optimize Cashflow During This Pandemic

In this difficult time, normal Bank lending criteria has tightened up.  Banks, always risk-averse, have become even more so during the pandemic. If a Bank is lending at all to businesses, they are only doing so to their existing business customers, and those customers must have demonstrated ridiculously healthy financials before the pandemic and more so now.

In other words: for businesses that are booming during the pandemic paradigm, in need of working capital to keep up with demand, the purse-strings at traditional Banks are pulled super tight.

Let’s discuss the fortunate scenario that your products are flying out the door or your services are in high demand right now due to the new pandemic paradigm. However, you find yourself in need of working capital, here’s a unique solution for your business:

Convert your Accounts Receivables to instant cash.

If your Customers have a good history of on-time payments within 40-60 days of Invoice issuance, and you’re selling B2B products or services, then you’re positioned to take advantage of this quick, affordable, working capital solution.  Lean into your Receivables and get the cash you need today to better service the orders for your Products and Services with Accounts Receivables Factor Financing.

Criteria:

  • You must sell your Product/Service B2B
  • Your Customers must pass muster for basic creditworthiness on their ability to pay Invoices
  • Non-Progressive Billing
  • Startups Acceptable
  • Consistent Accounts Receivable practice

Contact us to learn more about how Factor Financing could be an incredibly efficient and cost-effective way for you to have capital flowing to your business. Email us at Curious@AuroraConsulting.biz.

Short-Term Solutions for Long-Term Goals

There are two scenarios that some business owners take when starting and maintaining their business.

First, no debt.  These businesses were started with savings and/or investments from the business owners.  These businesses fund daily and annual operations costs with money generated from the profits of the business.  These business owners most often do not like the concept of credit debt, or, worse, have a severe anxiety about the idea of borrowing money to run their business.

Second, belief in debt.  Using debt in the form of credit financing is a reliable source of capital for starting and running a business when the concept is applied with smart planning. These business owners understand that obtaining capital to start or grow a business from a bank loan or other financing source can be a great way to preserve existing profits and working capital, and also a viable option to find the money needed on a larger scale.

Pandemic Panic financing such as disaster relief loans, SBA economic injury disaster loans (EIDL) and paycheck protection program (PPP) loans due to the COVID-19 crisis is a type of credit financing that, in most all cases, could be a band-aid on a gaping wound.

Longer term financial considerations, as your business strives to come through the crisis and survive on the other side, it’s important to consider other types of credit financing to help you obtain the working capital you need.  We’re exploring many different options for our clients.  One of those options is Asset-Based Lending, specifically, .

This is an excellent option for a business with valuable and well-performing Accounts Receivable to obtain quick sources of working capital to assist through this crisis.  The Factor Financing Lender works hand in hand with you and your business team to create a system where your customers invoices are assigned to the Lender.

For a very reasonable cost, you can obtain immediate access to the cash value of that invoice practically as soon as you send it out to your customer.  This quick access to capital dramatically improves your Cash Flow situation, helping to make you stronger on a daily basis to survive and thrive through this crisis.

Factor Financing Lenders vary in their criteria for the types of businesses and types of receivables they prefer.  We’ve assembled a healthy matrix of different types of Factor Financing Lenders to provide you with an array of financing options for your business to help you through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Curious? We are here to answer your questions about this type of financing. Email us at Curious@AuroraConsulting.biz.

5 Mistakes Business Owners Make

Let’s get it out of the way right now. We say 5 mistakes, but there are more. Don’t shoot the messenger. Part of the reason we post our blogs & vlogs is to raise awareness that financing doesn’t have to be as difficult. Don’t get us wrong, it can be a long process, but you have more control than you think.

These are the top 5 mistakes we’ve experienced with business owners when they are seeking financing.

1. Thinking the Bank knows everything about you.  You have all, or most, of your accounts with your local bank, including your operating account, savings, personal account, maybe even merchant services & payroll. It’s easier to bank in one place.  You think the bank maintains a detailed file on your financials, that they know how much revenue passes through your accounts every month.  This would be an incorrect assumption. The bank will still ask you for your full set of financial statements and much, much more.

2. Old Financials.  A business plan that’s five years old won’t fly. If you’re updating your Accounts Receivable aging report or your Profit and Loss statement on an infrequent basis, you will have some work to do and this most certainly will delay the process. You control the timeline when you apply for credit financing. Having updated documents at the ready lets you submit them with all speed and alacrity to move your financing request along.

3. Incomplete Financials.  No business plan? Many businesses don’t have one whether it’s a new business or an existing business. There are many, MANY financial forms that a lender will require. It will be your responsibility to provide complete, comprehensive information that many businesses, unfortunately, do not have easily accessible. Lender’s will have a debt schedule form and if this is inaccurate, it will slow down the process and delay your approval.

4. Too Busy, Too Rushed, Too Overwhelmed…Too Late. Bad decision-making often arises from lack of time and a local preparation. However, it happens that then you’re faced with a sudden, unexpected need for working capital. This sounds like opportunity, but if you’ve not been minding the store in the meantime, you will be faced with a high probability that you could be without options or very few options if any at all.

Bad decision-making begets more bad decisions by way of choosing financing options that is super expensive and over priced such as Merchant Account Financing (Merchant Cash Advance – MCA), hard money, equity investors, refinancing a personal residence and/or hitting the credit cards. This leaves you vulnerable to a lack of income & profit taking away any joy in running your business. We bet that you didn’t get into business to be broke and stressed out.

5. Failure to Fight.  Your Banker wants to make the loan work for you, because they truly value your relationship with the Bank.  When you get bad news, don’t take it lying down.  Dig in with your Banker—in person whenever possible—and get to the solution-seeking.  What do you need to do to flip this decision from a negative to a positive?

We have seen good people who own good businesses make bad decisions. We are truly fortunate and grateful that we have forged many valuable relationships with Bankers & Lenders. They know that sometimes they can’t do the deal, but they value the relationship with their client. If the Bank doesn’t make a decision favorable to your business, that doesn’t mean you should make a subsequent bad decision.

The more proactive and prepared you are, the more options you will have.

The Lender Reviews Everything

When you apply for financing and your tax returns and/or personal financial statement shows that you have interests in other businesses or property, the lender will want to review the financials on those other businesses.

When it comes down to it, the Lender has the right to ask for this information.

The question from our client is often, “Why is this germane to my financing request for my business?  That other business has nothing to do with the business I’m financing.”

While this may be true, remember that you’re asking the lender to assess the risk of lending money to you and to your business (the one on the application), and if there are negative aspects to your other businesses that affect the financial health of this business, the lender wants to assess that risk.

The good news is that you can control the narrative to an extent. Describe what the other business is via a summary statement and how it interacts with the business you are financing.  Especially with regards to debt.

There’s nothing wrong with full disclosure.  Get it out of the way upfront. Don’t wait for the Lender to ask for it.

Understand why the Lender wants that information instead of fighting the request.

The Lender has the right to ask these questions.  Pushing back is okay, as long as you do so in a gentle fashion.  In the end, it’s about achieving your goal of obtaining the financing you need to grow your business with the least muss and fuss as possible.

Download your “HOMEWORK”! You’ll thank us later.

Stop worrying about what's required when pursuing a business loan for your small business. This list will indicate what a lender, bank, SBA, etc. will want to know about you and your small business if you're looking for a business loan. These are prudent documents that help tell your small business story. Without them, it's difficult for lenders to assess you as a risk when it comes to lending your small business money. This is NOT SPECIFIC to the SBA EIDL loan.

Two Most Important Documents

There are two documents that are the most important documents that you should include and have ready for immediate access whenever applying for financing.

First and foremost, your current Year-To-Date (YTD) Income Statement. At Aurora Business Consulting, we believe you should be updating your YTD Income Statement every quarter, but it couldn’t hurt to update it every month. With automated bookkeeping software, creating a quick YTD Income Statement should be easy to accomplish.

The second important document to have at the ready is a comprehensive marketing plan. We don’t mean a one or two page marketing statement.  A comprehensive marketing plan with a full assessment of your marketing action plan, including specific strategies, Situational Analysis, demographics, SWOT analysis and cost analysis and expected outcomes is the recommended document to have at the ready.

Realistically your marketing plan should already be in place as a foundational element of your business operations.  In the event you need to apply for financing, and if there are changes to your marketing plan, you need only update the plan accordingly.  Especially if the financing request involves working capital for marketing expenses, or equipment purchases for the potential increased business revenues generated by your new marketing vision.

Why a marketing plan when you’re applying for financing? You know your objectives on maintaining and growing your business; the lender wants to know your objectives also.

With these two important documents, when you present the marketing plan and the income statement promptly and efficiently, it says something about your way of conducting business. You’re sending a clear signal to the Lender about the high quality methods you use to run your business; you’re giving the Lender a sense of “comfort” about the risk assessment on your financing request.

What if your financials are weak in certain areas for the last couple of years? The Marketing Plan also could potentially overcome some objections the lender has to something that’s weak in your financials.

The marketing plan shows the way you’re going to increase revenue either by something you’re doing already or something you plan to do which is why you’re applying for working capital or equipment capital.

Streamline Your Financing Request

Want to become a priority with the banker?

Summarizing your financing package can help to prioritize how your banker reviews your financing request.

We recently submitted a client’s financing request to one of the Lenders on our lending matrix.  Our Lender Rep. said, “Holy cow, you guys are on top of it with your summary. Not many brokers make it this easy to review the package.”

We made it easy because the client provided us with their financials. The financials were comprehensive. It’s a multi-million dollar corporation and we’re at the early stage of presenting to the lender. We want to show something that’s easily digestible. We want to ease  the process for the lender to give us a prompt review and tell us their interest in offering the financing.

Summarizing your financials is easy to do.  When you have a lot of line items that lead up to one, just one, type of deduction or one type of income source, simply summarize it. Drop it down to as few lines as possible so the lender can do a quick review and say,  “Okay, I see the picture here.”

The Lender doesn’t need to know the granular line by line details at this early stage; you want the Lender to give a fast review to gauge their interest. If the Lender expresses interest and offers a Letter of Intent for the financing, you can present the more detailed financials with your full loan application package.

For each financing request, present a one or two page statement describing the background of the business, the reason for their financing request, and, in bold, large font, the amount of our financing request.

Our presentation package for the initial Lender review is compact yet complete.  The “first glimpse” by a Lender is sufficient to tell us if that particular Lender is the right fit for our client’s request, or if we need to locate a different Lender.

Visit our Financing Fodder YouTube Playlist on how to prepare your business loan request.

Don’t Tell Me How To Make My Pizza!

We had a conversation with one of our Real Estate Broker Extraordinaire friends about all things business-related and, more specifically, about PIZZA.  She loves pizza similar to one of us here at Aurora Consulting (we’ll let you guess which one).

The chat happened while discussing an innovative pizza-restaurateur who created a wonderful and completely yummy pizza product.  This brilliant entrepreneur has come to realize his business is growing so rapidly that he suddenly finds himself in need of working capital to fund an expansion simply to keep up with the growth.

Good problem to have…except for the seeking working capital part.

The money part is where it gets challenging for this smart young pizza-entrepreneur.  He faces an important choice while facing the money challenge.

Should he search for a Lender to provide credit financing, or, surrender part of his business to an equity investor?

At Aurora Consulting, we believe this question has a simple answer.

Why surrender equity, and cede control, when you might very well find a credit solution to obtain the much needed working capital?  Yes, the answer is a question!  Or, the answer to the pizza-entrepreneur’s question can better be stated with the retort, “Don’t tell me how to make my pizza!”

Bringing in an equity investor for any growing business could (someday sooner or later) lead to your equity investor asserting control with how the business should be run.  That opinion could include, for this innovative pizza entrepreneur, suggestions on how to adjust the unique pizza recipe, you know, to make the product more cost-efficient.

Or the opinion from the new “partner” could be any number of other ideas, suggestions, opinions, plans, assertions, on growing the business, you know, to be more profitable.

That equity investor may have no idea at all about how to make pizza.

Many business owners are concerned with the idea of credit financing.  Let’s face it, credit financing can scare the heck out of many people.  Thank you to the global credit bust and subsequent recession for that anxiety-filled-ideation.  Borrowing money from a Lender, whether a traditional bank, or a non-traditional portfolio lender, is often a much more tranquil experience than you might think.

The question becomes one of finding the right lender.  The question never, ever, ever, becomes one of, “Hey, how about we use this ingredient in the pizza recipe instead of your original because this ingredient is cheaper and our product will be more profitable?”

Yeah, that question.  It’s not going to happen when you finance your capital cash needs with the right loan product and the right lender.

Visit our Financing Fodder YouTube Playlist for more information on how to prepare yourself when requesting a business loan.

Growth Can Be Sneaky

Growth?

Sometimes, it sneaks up on us!

And when it does, sometimes we need working capital to finance that growth.

That is, if you welcome growth and want to ride that momentum.

If change is NOT your thing, STOP reading NOW!

IF YOU ARE STILL READING, there are ways to access the capital you need to ride the growth wave very quickly.

You’ve been busy growing your business, and it’s paying off.  You’re keeping your financials current and do your best to predict future market trends, sales goals, and costs.

But growth can sneak up on you.  And when it does, you need to fund that growth, whether it’s for marketing expenses, operating capital, equipment purchases or other costs dynamic to your growing business. If you have sufficient cash assets, then you’re all set.  If you have a sufficient line of credit from your Bank, you’re good to go.

The problem is, when you set aside those cash assets in the first place, when you created that line of credit, you couldn’t perfectly predict the cash you’d need when the moment of truth arrived in the future.  Growth has a way of surprising you, a lot like flood waters after a heavy rainstorm, but in a good way.   You may find yourself scrambling to find the capital you need to fund that growth.

Traditionally, businesses caught in this capital-crunch-conundrum turn to their Banker for assistance for a new Line of Credit or an expansion on an existing Line.  Maybe a straight loan, or a loan mixed with a Line of Credit.  The business owner in this scenario can’t predict if the Banker can or will take on the appropriate risk to fund the right amount of capital needed.  The Banker may not see the optimistic opportunity presented by your sudden collision with your growth floodwaters.

Plus, the timeline to obtain the requisite capital funding from your Banker may be too lengthy to get the cash in hand quickly enough.

For the business owner confronted with the surprise of growth, the uncertainties faced with the traditional Bank financing may be too much to bear as they consider matching capital needs with growth experiences.

Pivot to the other extreme, business owners find themselves funding their capital requirements with funding that is quickly available and sufficient in dollar amounts, but the cost of that capital can be astronomical.

In the middle ground between these two financing scenarios exist alternative options.  Asset-Based Lending leaning against your Accounts Receivable or Inventory, or specialized financing against your Purchase Orders, provide timely, strategic and cost-effective solutions.

There are also hybrid solutions, financing that meets your short term needs while you work on completing the more complicated traditional financing package.

At Aurora Business Consulting we seek out those alternative financing solutions with a creative mind towards getting you the capital you need in an efficient timely basis to continue your business success story.

There’s no surprise in how we work, with diligence, enthusiasm, and experience.

Email Trevor for more info on how this may or may not work for you!