Freight Bill Factoring for Canadian Transportation Companies

One of the biggest challenges of owning a logistics company is managing all the payments associated with operations. This is true for both freight brokers and truckers. There are driver expenses, fuel expenses, office expenses and repair expenses. What makes managing these expenses difficult is that few clients offer a quick pay alternative. More often than not, they will require that you give them 30 to 60 day payment terms. That is where the problem lies, especially for growing companies.

Basically, you have expenses that must be paid now and income that will come later. There are only two ways to cover this gap. If you have some capital, you can cover the expenses and wait until you get paid. Otherwise, you will need to get business financing.

Most owners think that business loans are the only form of financing for a business. The challenge with a business loan is that they are difficult to obtain. Most banks in Canada are conservative and will only provide a small business loan if the company has a solid track record and substantial assets.

Furthermore, a business loan is usually better if you use it buy capital goods/equipment, rather than to solve short term cash flow problems. One alternative form of business financing that has been gaining traction in Canada is freight factoring.

Freight factoring is a financing product that is designed specifically to solve the time gap between delivery of services and payment. It provides a cash advance against the freight bill, providing funds to meet business expenses and tackle new opportunities. One important difference between business loans and factoring is that freight factoring is usually easy to obtain. The most important requirement is that you work with clients who have good commercial credit and pay their invoices - albeit slowly.

Transactions can be structured in a couple of ways. Most companies opt to get two advances. The first one, about 90% of the invoice, is given immediately. The remaining 10%, less a fee, are advanced once the actual invoice is paid by the client. Others opt for a full advance, where they get only a single full advance (usually higher than 90%). However, these transactions have a higher cost.

The costs of financing are determined by the volume of invoices you finance and the credit quality of your clients.