FactorONE Blog

Risk-management – the keystone to business growth Business growth requires a solid foundation and a solid foundation is built on powerful risk-management. “The message is simple,” says Greg Charlwood, Head of Debtor Finance for FactorONE and Scottish Pacific Business Finance. “As a rule of thumb, w......

Many small businesses dip their hands in their pockets and use personal credit to keep their SMEs moving, but there are smarter funding options. Mark Ryan, a director of Sydney small business Viking Legal Services, was regularly using his own credit cards to pay Viking expenses that were falling due......

A building in an earthquake area is engineered to withstand tremors. A bridge is designed to bear the weight of traffic and resist the pressures of sun, rain and rust. And a business? It needs to stand up to the stress of fickle, price-sensitive customers, fast-moving competitors, an unpredictable e......

Preventing serious issues from occurring is always more cost effective than resolving them once they have. At FactorONE we believe there are four key areas for directors to question their management teams, to ensure they stay on top of cash flow and working capital issues. 1. Debtor Days - If d......

No business owner wants to give their customers and suppliers the impression that they are struggling financially – particularly if this isn’t the case. This has long been a common misconception and can be an obstacle for companies considering factoring their invoices, where a business raises workin......

Factoring, Debtor Finance, Cash Flow Finance, Invoice Finance… It comes with a different title depending on who you talk to, but it achieves the same outcome for SMEs - helping SMEs with their cash flow. Invoice Finance allows an SME to access funds tied up in the Accounts Receivables owed to that b......

In almost all cases where an SME has tax arrears, the Bank will be unwilling to advance further funds to assist the business and/or they will often withdraw existing working capital facilities. This often severely impacts its cashflow. The reasons behind such actions are rarely provided, but the sti......

After witnessing a very interesting and turbulent week in Canberra, it got me thinking; how will this affect the market that I primarily work in – The SME market in Australia? In the short time since the change in Prime Minister, there has been a reasonable amount of discussion in the press around ......

Despite record low interest rates and borrowing costs for SMEs, there was a pronounced increase in the number of company insolvencies during FY15. This fact is fairly obvious when you have a quick look at the official statistics recently published by ASIC. The latest figures reveal 2,734 companies e......

Invoice Finance and Factoring has become the tool of choice to help turnaround specialists in their work with fast growth and troubled businesses, according to Michael Fingland, managing director of award-winning turnaround specialist Vantage Performance. Michael says turnaround and debtor finance f......

Businesses looking to improve their performance should consider refinancing and switching to another lender to improve their cashflow. A recent small business survey suggests that businesses are more likely to grow, and their chances of survival double, when they work with a finance provider who is ......

The ATO's Inspector General has recently published a report revealing a Total Tax Debt growing by 9.7% between 2013 and 2014. Current outstanding is a staggering $35.5B. Some 24% of the debt is disputed with 19% owed by insolvent entities. That still leaves some $20B collectible. 60% of the totaled ......

When credit is cheap the incentive to release cash tied up in working capital is reduced. This type of apathy from business owners who have access to cheap debt is evidenced by an increasing cash conversion cycle and debtor days which are essentially static at 55 days. Should business owners care ab......

Business growth requires a solid foundation and a solid foundation is built on powerful risk-management. “The message is simple,” says Greg Charlwood, Head of Debtor Finance for Scottish Pacific and Factor One. “As a rule of thumb, when you cut your risk, you cut your losses and maximise profits.&nb......

Establishing a business will always come with pressure, but none more so, or more overlooked, than cash flow. 250,000 new businesses or start-ups are launched each year, in Australia. The start of a new business can be an uncertain time with many key factors influencing success – from writing a busi......

If your customers are taking longer and longer to pay their bills, you are not alone. The latest Dun and Bradstreet quarterly figures show that the average SME has their invoices paid in around 52 days, well beyond the standard 30 day payment period. There are serious cash flow and cost implications......

Many SMEs falter at the point of expansion because they have a limited understanding of its cash conversion cycle and find themselves unable to raise capital or other sources of funding. For an SME to grow profitably it must come to grips with two key factors on its Balance Sheet. The first is worki......

There are many positives to utilising a factoring facility that can sometimes be overlooked. Factoring enables business owners to meet the goals they set, with greater efficiency. Below is a non-exhaustive list of reasons why factoring finance is the fastest-growing lending product in Australia......

On January 1 the final element of APRA’s liquidity standard under Basel III came into existence, and SMEs need to be aware of its potential impact.Known as the Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR), it seeks to ensure that Australia’s banks have sufficient liquid assets to cover liabilities that need to be......

We need to accept that Australia is now an energy economy and our relative standard of living is all about commodity prices. Therefore we should expect at least 2 years of adjustment to this new reality.The good news is that any further depreciation of the currency is good for investment and we can ......