In recent times, invoice financing has gained popularity owing to reasons like instant availability of collateral-free funding and hassle-free application process. At 10% of total credits from financial institutions, invoice or bill financing can make a significant difference in bridging the working capital deficits of businesses.

The process of availing funds is further simplified with KredX, one of the most promising invoice financing companies in India.

What is Invoice Financing?

Invoice financing in India refers to the process through which businesses can avail advances against outstanding invoices from their customers. In turn, businesses pay a certain percentage of this total invoice amount as a fee to their lender.

Through this method of financing, businesses can meet their short-term liquidity requirements by availing a percentage of the value of their unpaid invoices as a loan. These unpaid invoices are considered as accounts receivables. It means that businesses will receive the stipulated amount against invoices raised, but at a later date.

Utilising this method to avail funds, businesses can improve their cash inflow, invest in operations to foster growth, pay their suppliers and employees, and see to a host of other financial needs. Invoice financing helps companies do away with the necessity to wait for customers to settle bills and gain access to necessary funding readily, thus making them a popular form of financing sought by businesses. A customer questionnaire performed resulted in 22% of the respondents favouring bill financing as a convenient mode of instant funding.

How Does Invoice Financing Work?

Before opting for invoice finance, it is crucial to learn how the entire funding process is carried out. Here’s how it works.

Most businesses usually sell their goods and services to their customers (like retailers and wholesalers) on the basis of credits. It means that customers do not usually pay upfront for such goods and services, and are instead charged at a later date. Now, when the business sells its goods or services to customers, it generates an invoice payable within 30-90 days. Invoice financing is the process through which businesses can avail instant funding against such invoices, by following these steps –

• Once an invoice is generated, businesses forward it to the chosen financier.
• The financier then reviews this invoice and disburses a percentage of its value as a loan to the business within 24-72hrs*(varies from one lender to another).
• The business can then wait for the customer to settle the outstanding invoice amount. If unpaid, the business owners can pursue such payments, or get the financier to do it on their behalf, depending on the agreement.
• Once this invoice is settled by the customer, businesses receive the remaining percentage of their invoice’s value, sans the stipulated service fee levied by the financier.

Invoice financing thus allows businesses to mobilise the capital which would otherwise have been held up in unpaid invoices.

Types of Invoice Financing:

As a business owner, you can opt for two types of invoice financing. These are invoice factoring and invoice discounting.

While both these types of invoice finance operate along the same principles, their lending structure is different.

• Invoice Factoring: Also known as debt factoring, this particular type of financing enables businesses to avail capital by selling their unpaid invoices to a third-party factoring company.
  The factoring company (financier) purchases these invoices for a certain percentage of their total value and takes over the responsibility to collect payments against these invoices.
• Invoice Discounting: Invoice discounting, on the other hand, is carried out under confidentiality. In this process, the business’s customers are not aware of the fact that their unpaid invoices are being utilised to raise funds.
  Here, the business has total control of the sales ledger and is committed to the task of collecting the outstanding amount against invoices from customers.

Nonetheless, irrespective of the type of invoice finance one opts for, he/she can avail up to three times more cash through it than with other forms of financing.

Differences Between Invoice Factoring And Invoice Discounting:

To understand how each of these types of invoice financing function, it is crucial to learn the differences between the two. Following is a table that illustrates how these methods of borrowing against debt differ from each other.

Despite these differences, both these types of invoice financing can be extremely handy funding avenues for businesses irrespective of the industry or sector they belong to.

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Best Invoice Financing Company In India:

The last few years have been witness to the emergence of several invoice financing companies in India. Among them, KredX is India’s leading invoice discounting marketplace that offers working capital for businesses against unclear invoices with completely transparent terms and conditions.

Business owners can easily opt for invoice discounting through our online platform and avail funds instantly against the value of their invoices. Here’s how the process works –

• Customer raises an invoice, typically payable between 30 - 90 days.
• He/she needs to sign up and upload the invoice at our portal.
• Loan is approved against the invoice value and disbursed to the customer’s account within 24-72 hours*.

The external investor, in turn, receives payment when the invoice is paid out at the end of the tenure.

With this extremely streamlined process, businesses can avail funds in no time and address their financial requirements without hassle. Thus, with working capital readily available, businesses no longer have to undergo downtime in receiving funds regularly and can keep their cash flow steady throughout.