Is A Huge Sale A Dream Or A Nightmare?
Ever worked on getting that big customer for months, chasing after then, long drives or flights to see them so you can win them over with your service and determination? Then have the worst thing that can happen in a situation like that you get the order and now you have to figure out how you can possibly fill it because the order larger than your total Operating Line of Credit.
That did happen to a Telecommunication Company in New York State, USA. In one order, their sales had increased to over 3 times the size of their entire Line of Credit at their bank. The owner went to the bank to get it increased so they could take on the order but the bank refused to increase their limit.
The customer in this case had to have 30 day terms on the invoice. To make it worse, the suppliers needed to be paid before they would ship the goods. Big problem. If you look at a 10 day delivery time on top of the 30 day sale terms, he would have 40 long days that needs to be gapped. With the though of having to refuse the order in your mind, consider this. What if there were a way to finance this gap in funding that would not involve major financial statements, appraisals and other types of documents?
That is an option, but the owner of the company kept looking for a solution. He ended up speaking with an Accounts Receivable Factoring Company, but they could not help because of the time span as well since they could only fund on open invoices on delivered goods. The goods could not be delivered without payment and he could not get payment at this point without delivering the goods. Quite a predicament.
The owner of the company spoke with a Professional Commercial Finance Broker who knew exactly what to do. He put together a Purchase Order Finance facility with a lender that specialized in the product that the company was selling. In a very short period of time, the financing was approved and the transaction was completed without an issue, and now the company was in the position to take any size order without the fear of not being able to afford to take the business.
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