Invoice finance and factoring for UK businesses

You sell to other businesses on credit terms and wait 30, 60 or 90 days to get paid. Invoice finance lets a lender advance you part of that money straight away, at the advance rate each lender publishes, then release the rest (minus their fee) once your customer pays. It turns your unpaid invoices into working capital you can use now.

With factoring, the lender also runs your sales ledger and chases payment from your customers, so they know a facility is in place. With invoice discounting, you keep control of collections and it is usually confidential, so your customers do not know. Lenders set their own turnover and finance-function requirements for each, and which one a business uses is its own decision.

Both exist. A whole-turnover facility covers your full sales ledger. Selective or single invoice finance lets you pick individual invoices or customers to fund as and when you need it, with no obligation to put everything through. Fees are set per invoice on a selective facility and across the ledger on a whole-turnover one, and each lender publishes its own.

Each lender publishes its own advance rate, and it depends on your customers and your sector; a retention held back under a construction contract is treated differently from a clean invoice. The lender advances it on its own published timing once the invoice is raised and verified, with the remaining balance, less the lender fees, paid once your customer settles.

Two charges apply on most facilities: a service fee, a percentage of your turnover for running the facility, and a discount charge, which is interest on the money you have drawn, priced by the lender over a reference rate. Each lender publishes its own service fee and discount charge, and they change. The exact numbers depend on your turnover, sector, customer quality and how you use the facility. We set out the costs each lender provides so you can decide before you commit.

With recourse factoring, if your customer never pays, you have to repay the advance. With non-recourse, the lender carries some or all of the bad debt risk, through bad debt protection, and prices that protection itself. Whether to ask for a non-recourse price is your decision.

CapExpand Ltd (FRN 1060885) is a credit broker and an Appointed Representative of White Rose Finance Group Limited (FRN 630772), which is directly authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. We are a broker, not a lender. We work with UK limited companies and LLPs only, for business and commercial purposes. If you have a complaint, our complaints page explains how it is handled.

No. We are not a lender. We are an invoice finance broker: we introduce UK limited companies and LLPs to our panel of invoice finance providers and set out what each one provides so you can decide. We will receive commission from lenders; the commission model, calculation and amount will be disclosed to you throughout your customer journey.

Tell us your annual turnover, who you invoice and on what payment terms, and whether you want the lender to run collections (factoring) or to keep them confidential (invoice discounting). Two minutes on the form or one call. We read your ledger against what invoice lenders ask for and put the case only to those whose published criteria it meets, once you have said so. Each one quotes its own advance rate, service fee and discount charge, and we set the quotes out as each lender provides them so you can decide. We will receive commission from lenders, and enquiring does not affect your credit score. If you apply to a lender, it runs its own credit search, which may be recorded on your file.

We have access to a range of UK commercial finance lenders through our principal, White Rose Finance Group Limited. The panel changes over time, so it is not published as a list here, and each lender decides its own case.

We have access to a range of UK commercial finance lenders through our principal, White Rose Finance Group Limited. We do not send your details to all of them. We check each lender’s published criteria against your case and approach only those it meets, once you have said so. Panel composition is set by our principal and changes; a lender being on the panel is a fact about the panel, not a recommendation. Any figures are a guide, not a quote.

Invoice finance criteria centre on your customers' invoices rather than your own trading history, so a young business, or one with older adverse credit, is assessed on its ledger as well as its history. Each lender sets its own view of adverse credit; the age of the mark, whether it is satisfied and the explanation all matter. Every case is subject to the lender's own checks on you and on your debtors.

Each lender publishes its own set-up time, and they change, because the lender reviews your ledger and your customers before anything goes live. After that it stops being an application process: once the facility is live the lender pays out against a newly raised invoice on the timing it sets, and you draw as you invoice rather than reapplying each time you win a bigger contract.

Not in the usual sense. You are releasing money you have already earned rather than borrowing against future profit, and the facility rises and falls with the sales ledger instead of sitting as a fixed monthly repayment. It is still a credit facility with fees, a notice period and, on a recourse facility, an obligation to make good the money drawn if the customer never pays, so read the terms as carefully as you would a loan agreement.