Baltimore, MD -- (SBWire) -- 02/01/2011 -- Financing a small business has always been challenging. Read this article to find out if factoring financing is the right solution for your small business. Learn from experts; refrain from internet offer scams and fraud.

Shaw Capital Management and Financing provide same-day-funding. We can help you meet your cashflow needs immediately without entering into a long term factoring relationship. The money you get for the freight bills we purchase is payment in full.

Small business owners have always had a tough time obtaining financing. Simply, most small businesses just can’t qualify for conventional business loans. The requirements are too onerous – the company must have sizable assets, multiple years of profitability and many times, it’s financial statements must be audited by a 3rd party.

Most business owners consider that a business loan is their only business financing alternative. When they get turned away, they give up any hope of obtaining financing. What most small business owners don’t know is that they do have alternatives – and – many times those alternatives can work better that conventional financing.

Let’s take a common cash flow challenge. Companies that sell products or services to other businesses usually have to wait between 30 and 60 days to get paid for their services. So, they incur the expenses of delivery immediately, but then wait a long time to recoup their investment. While this is fine for companies with adequate banking reserves, it is one of the major challenges that business owners face today. As a matter of fact, few startups plan for the fact that it takes 4 to 8 weeks to get paid, which not only limits their growth opportunities, but challenges their very survival as a business.

Now, most business owners would consider that the only solution to the previous problem is to get a loan or a line of credit. But there is another option – it’s called factoring financing. Few people have heard of it, so not many owners consider it if they fail to get a business loan.

Invoice factoring offers a very simple solution to the slow payments problem. Let’s say that you sold $10,000 worth of consulting services to a company. And let’s say that they’ll pay the $10,000 in about 45 days, which is the industry average. Now, what happens if you can’t wait because you need to meet payroll or make supplier payments? Well, you could sell the invoice to a factoring company. The factoring company would buy it from you in two installments. The first installment would be for 80% of the invoice, or $8000 in the case of our example. This is paid at invoicing.

The second installment, paid to you when your client actually pays the invoice, is the remaining 20%, less a fee. Using our example, it’d be $2000 minus the cost of the factoring service.

So factoring invoices offers you the following proposition: an immediate advance of about 80% at time of invoicing, and a second advance for the reminder (less fees) at the time of actual payment.

As you can see, factoring provides the needed working capital to meet business expenses without worrying about when your client will pay. It provides you with predictable cash flow, positioning your business for growth. And qualifying for factoring tends to be relatively easy. The biggest requirement (though not the only one) is that you must have a good roster of clients. By Marco Terry