Investly Help Centre - Invoice Financing and Factoring

In order to qualify to finance invoices through Investly your company should:

• Be up and running for at least 6 months
• Be based in the UK
• Have a good credit standing
• Shouldn't have any ongoing court issues

Find out more about what the application process is like.

During your sign up, we will ask you to upload bank statements from all banks your business has accounts in. The statements should show the past 6 months of your account activity. 

That's it. If we need any other documents, we will contact you personally.

Once you have submitted your info and bank statements to us, the process should take about 1-3 days depending on the quality of the documents and level of communication between your company and our team.

We will not contact any of your customers before you sign the contract and never without your prior permission. Once we make you an offer and sign the contract, we will ask your permission to contact your customer in order to verify the first invoice.

We've worked very hard to make the application process as simple and straightforward as possible. In order to finish your application there are three main things you have to cover:

1. Sign up. You can find the signup form on our home page.
2. Company information. Fill out some basic information about your company and your contact details.
3. Bank statements. Upload your bank statements for the previous 6 months. This information is used to provide a credit limit. We do not share this information with third parties.

Once we have your application, we will contact you straight away and introduce our offering with a credit limit and expected costs. After that, you are ready to sell your first invoice.

Invoice financing is a simple way for businesses to improve their cash flow by selling their invoices and getting cash right away compared to waiting out the 15-120 day terms typical for invoices to be paid by clients.

At Investly, we have tried to make the process as simple as possible. To sell your invoices just follow these simple steps:

• Sign up. Using our sign up form, fill out your company information and upload bank statements that will aid us quickly approving your application.
• Upload invoices. Once you have been approved by the Investly team, upload any invoices you would like to sell on our platform.
• Get cash in your account. Your invoice will go to auction that usually lasts one to two days. During this time, investors will place bids on your invoice and compete to offer you the best rate. From the bids, we choose the ones that are cheapest to you. At the end of the auction, the funds will be deposited in your account minus the discount fee.
• Your client pays. One the due date, your client will make a payment to our bank account.

Invoice finance can be used for many business reasons but is an especially great fit for companies that experience long payment terms for the invoices they issue or irregular expenditures.

Invoice financing allows you to unlock cash from your invoices immediately. You can use that to:

• meet seasonal demand by increasing your supplies
• get an early payment discount from your suppliers
• hire extra staff
• win new customers by offering longer payment terms than your competitors

Invoice finance is not suitable if your clients are already or consistently delayed.

Yes! That's one of the best parts about using Investly - only sell the invoices you need when you need them.

Unlike banks, Investly does not require you to commit to a specific sum of invoices to finance. You are not forced to factor your whole sales ledger. You are free to choose which invoices you sell and you can even sell individual invoices. This means a lower cost of credit and increased profits. Simply sign up, and when you're ready, upload an invoice you would like to sell and auction it off to the highest bidders.

Unlike banks, Investly never asks for payment for when you are not using the service.

• No reserves. At Investly we are able to finance up to 100% of the invoice amount minus the discount right away, while most other invoice finance providers can do about 70-85%. This means that you can get more for your invoice, quicker.
• Lower cost. Unlike traditional finance providers, we are a marketplace, meaning, many different investors are competing with their bids, ultimately, driving down the price of finance for you.
• Commitment-free. Typical factoring providers give you factoring limits and tie you into selling most, if not all invoices through them. We don't think you should pay for finance you don't need. How many invoices and when you sell is completely up to you.

Take a look below at some key differences:

Factoring:

• A bank or factoring company will purchase a company’s invoices for 70-85% of the invoice value. When they get paid in full the business will be able to access the remaining percentage (15-30%) minus the factoring company’s fees and interest.
• The use of factoring is disclosed to your clients.
• Factoring normally involved financing your whole sales ledger, even if you need to finance just a few invoices or if the need is only seasonal.
• The third party takes on the companies’ credit checking, the management of the sales ledger and credit control.
• Contract signing, updating and extending fees; annual limit fees on used and unused credit; fees for adding new customers; collateral contract fees.

Invoice financing:

• Companies can finance just the invoices they choose to and at any time throughout the year. The company will usually receive up to 98% of the invoice value from investors (100% minus fees). Businesses that use the same platform and have a good history pay a smaller fee as they build trust with investors over time.
• The use of invoice financing does not have to be disclosed to clients.
• Responsibility remains with the company for credit checking their clients and their sales ledger.
• No facility required or any contractual tie-in with notice periods.
• No hidden fees or charges.

Usually within one working day after the end of the auction.

Once your invoice has been funded, you will have to either send your customer a repeating invoice or inform them that some of the payment details have been changed. On the invoice itself, you will have to change the bank account number but can keep your company name and all other details the same.

When the customer confirms that he has received the new details, we will transfer the cash for your invoice to your account.

Investly is able to finance up to 100% of your invoice minus the Investly fee. Once your invoice gets financed, we will subtract the financing fee and deposit the rest of the money into your account. That's it. No complicated fee structures or reserves to worry about.

Banks usually finance 70-85% of your invoices, keeping the rest of the money in reserve until the invoice is paid. Investly offers the best advance rate in the industry.

When you initially sign up as an invoice seller, we will have to contact the buyer of your invoice to confirm details. Although, we will never contact your customer without your prior consent.

There is a possibility to finance invoices confidentially. In that case, there will be a special procedure to verify the receipt of goods/services and confirmation of invoice details.

During the onboarding call with the Investly team, you are welcome to express your preferences for confidential invoice financing. As you sell more and more invoices with us, we will be able to set a track record of trust and limit the contact with the buyers of your invoices.

Once you have uploaded an invoice it goes to auction. Many different investors place bids of varying sums and interest rates and we sort out the best deal for you. You don't have to do anything, it's all automated.

Investly uses a reverse auction where bids get sorted from lowest to highest based on the interest rate.

Let's say there is a £20,000 invoice being financed in the auction:

The blue line represents the sum at which the bid is fulfilled.

Once the invoice amount is fulfilled, investors are still able to make bids but they have to be lower than the highest competing bid in order to be considered.

The invoice gets financed by the last interest rate filling the auction, which, in this example would be 1.7%.

The signup is free. You are able to register and get a quote on the platform absolutely free. Investly only charges you for invoices sold on the platform. No other fees or expenses.

We charge per invoice. There are no ongoing, subscription or any other hidden fees. Typically it's a one-off fee of 1.5-3.1% per 30 days invoice.

Investly is a marketplace that connects investors with invoice finance seekers. The invoice gets financed through an auction process where investors are able to place competing bids of varying sums and rates. The investors are able to outbid each other by offering better interest rates, which, in turn, lets you reap the benefits of the most competitive rates on the market.

Please see our blog post for more information regarding auctions.

We run credit, background and fraud checks to determine the creditworthiness of all companies financing invoices. To help investors make an educated decision, we share the summary of our findings gathered from public databases (see below). Investors can also see information on previous invoices you have financed on the platform. We do not share confidential information or your customers' contact info.

Seller and debtor background

A short description of the seller and debtor company is provided in emails sent out to all investors.

Credit rating and probability of default

We use Estonia’s largest and most trusted credit scoring agency, Krediidiinfo AS (a subsidiary of Creditinfo Group), for the credit rating and likelihood of default score. In the UK, we use Experian and DueDil.

• The credit rating is expressed in letter combinations from AAA (highest) to B (lowest).
• Probability of default (PD%) shows the likelihood of the company falling into arrears within the following 12 months. This is displayed next to the credit rating.

The financial information you provide to Investly is only used for assessing your credit risk and getting a better understanding of your company. Your bank statements will only be seen by Investly's credit analysts.

We will not share your bank statements with your customers, investors, or any third parties.

The information you provide to Investly is kept strictly confidential and is only used to provide you Investly services and send you relevant information.

For detailed information, please take a look at our privacy policy.

We finance invoices issued to businesses and the public sector. We do not to finance invoices issued to private individuals or sole proprietors.

Yes! We accept export invoices issued to companies in most countries around the world. If you are interested, let us know and our client manager will give you more specific feedback.

Invoices should preferably be in pound sterlings.

• Trading for more than 3 years
• Turnover of at least £1 million per year
• Good credit standing