This week, SME Invoice Finance spoke with Emma Lincoln, a 36-year-old small business owner from Surrey. Emma wanted to tell us how invoice finance helped her business continue moving forward through some pretty testing times.
Emma runs an accountancy firm in Redhill, employing seven members of staff. Setting up shop in 2012, Emma and her team quickly built a solid client base, offering full business accounting services to clients in the Surrey area.
“Things were moving along really nicely, and much quicker than I expected”, she told us today from her office. “By the end of year one we already had more clients than what I predicted we’d have by year three!”
The early success didn’t come without its difficulties however, as Emma explained: “The regular business was fantastic, but as our client base grew, so did our costs. The more business we had coming in, the more resources I would have to use to service it”.
“A problem we quickly encountered was waiting for our clients’ invoices to be cleared. For example, we would invoice a client £7,000 for work done, but we’d have to wait several weeks to receive the money. When you have clients coming onboard continuously, that wait becomes very difficult!”
Emma isn’t alone with this. A huge amount of SMEs in the UK face similar problems of negative cash flow due to invoice payment delays. Emma explained how approaching an invoice financier helped her business move forward.
“We approached SME Invoice Finance who quickly put us in touch with a lender. Within 24 hours we were able to access the cash tied up in outstanding invoices. We were advanced 85% of the invoice value and returned the remaining percentage when our client paid, minus the lender’s fees”.
Emma and her team were able to use the benefits of invoice finance to keep their cash flow healthy, enabling them to service more business much more quickly. If like Emma you’re faced with similar problems with your business, see what invoice finance can do for you and get in touch with us today.
