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Security Guard Companies and their funding gap – how are they going to fill it?

Some of my Security Guard company clients have been asking me how they can bridge the financial gap between the downturn of trade and when things return to normal.

 

Hi, my name is Graeme Shevas.

I help Scottish Security Guard Companies who are having problems with their cash flow, to release cash from their sales invoices.

I’ve been in business for over 30 years and one of the questions that my customers have been asking me lately is ‘how do I get my cashflow moving now that other businesses are having trouble paying their bills?’.

Here’s my best advice:

If you’re a Scottish firm operating in the business-to-business sector, you’ll be raising invoices for your products or services. At the moment, your normal payment terms for those invoices will most likely be 45 to 60 days. You may have seen a drop-off in trade and the amount of money that you’re going to have over the coming months will be significantly reduced.

You may well have enough to get you through until the point where you can begin trading at normal levels again, but when you need cash to pay the bills as you return to normal trading levels, you’re going to have to wait another 45-60 days for payment. Therefore, the actual funding gap is going to be longer
than the business interruption.

How are you going to plug that gap?

This is where Invoice Finance and the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) guarantee may be able to help. As soon as you raise an invoice you could have access to 85-90% of its value within 24 hours instead of having to wait the 45-60 days to get paid.

This will give you ready cash flow to allow you to meet your costs and thrive as we get back to normal.

This is something that I specialise in and my role is to make sure that you don’t need to go to lots of different providers. You only need to provide your information once and we will access the most suitable providers based on the sector that you’re in, your turnover, and how your business is doing.

It is a straightforward process to apply and it doesn’t cost you anything, my fee is covered by the provider.

For more information and to see how a flexible Invoice Finance orFactoring Solution can benefit your business, please call us today or submit an enquiry and we will contact you.

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Understanding Commercial Property Mortgages

I’m currently working on a commercial mortgage for a client. I thought it appropriate to go through some points that were raised in our recent discussion about commercial mortgages.

So, most commercial mortgages are going through Tier 1. This is High Street lenders effectively. You can get fifteen-year terms if you’re doing it as an investment, and 20 years if you’re actually owner-occupier, but High Street banks tend to be capital and repayment.

The loan to values can be eighty percent for owner occupier, or 100 percent if you are looking to buy a portfolio which is tenanted. So if it can be shown that it’s genuinely under market value then effectively you may be able to do it without putting any money in. In saying this, a lot of lenders prefer to see some ‘skin in the game’.

Tier 2 tends to become a little bit more attractive. This is on the basis of a lower cost to repay because they will offer either a capital repayment, part and part, or interest-only facility. So, whilst they will potentially be slightly higher in terms of their interest rate, it may suit the strategy that you are operating. Because of that, tier 2 might be worth looking at.

Tier 3. There are less that get there, let us put it that way. But it can be used if potentially you have some adverse credit. So, if you have adverse credit, not within the last 12 months, but 12 months or older that can be explained away then tier 3 may well look to support you on that.

Now, commercial mortgage is obviously for property, but you can also use it for buying a trading business. So, there are two valuations that you get when you are buying a trading business that operates from a property, and one of them is called a market value and the other is market value one, so MV1.

MV1 tends to include an element of goodwill, fixtures and fittings, and things like that, so you can borrow slightly more if you are going to buy a business that is operating. Do bear in mind that if you are going to be an owner operator your maximum term is going to be 20 years. Also, if you are going to the High Street, it’s capital and repayment that you’ll be looking at.

If you are look to buy a commercial property, or even a trading business and you think we can help, please get in touch and we’ll be happy to have a conversation.

 

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Recruitment companies have options available to release cash from their sales invoices.

Hi, my name is Graeme Shevas.

I help Recruitment Companies who are having problems with their cash flow, to release cash from their sales invoices.I’ve been in business for over 30 years and one of the questions that my customers have been asking me lately is ‘how do I get my cashflow moving now that other businesses are having trouble paying their bills?’.

Here’s my best advice: If you’re operating in the Business to Business sector, you’ll be raising invoices for your products or services. At the moment, your normal payment terms for those invoices will most likely be 45 to 60 days. You may have seen a drop-off in trade and the amount of money that you’re going to have over the coming months will be significantly
reduced.

You may well have enough to get you through until the point where you can begin trading at normal levels again, but when you need cash to pay the bills as you return to normal trading levels, you’re going to have to wait another 45-60 days for payment. Therefore, the actual funding gap is going to be longer than the business interruption.

How are you going to plug that gap? This is where Invoice Finance and the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) guarantee may be able to help.

As soon as you raise an invoice you could have access to 85-90% of its value within 24 hours instead of having to wait the 45-60 days to get paid. This will give you ready cash flow to allow you to meet your costs and thrive as we get back to normal.

This is something that I specialise in and my role is to make sure that you don’t need to go to lots of different providers. You only need to provide your information once and we will access the most suitable providers based on the sector that you’re in, your turnover, and how your business is doing.

It is a straightforward process to apply and it doesn’t cost you anything, my fee is covered by the provider.

If you think this may work for you, or have any questions, fill out the ‘Contact Us‘ page on this website and we can have a discussion about how we can help.

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Invoice Finance facilities for the Scottish Transport and Haulage industry

Hi, my name is Graeme Shevas and I help Scottish Transport and Haulage companies to improve their cash flow by releasing monies from their sales invoices.

I’ve been in business for over 30 years and the question I’m getting asked most often at the moment is ‘How do I improve my cash flow now that my customers are finding it harder to pay their bills?’

So, here is my best advice. If you are in the Scottish business to business sector you will be raising invoices for your goods or services and you’ll probably be waiting 45-60 days to be paid for those invoices. As a result of the Coronavirus you may well have seen a downturn in trade. It’s not always the case with transport but certain sectors and companies certainly have, so
that will mean that you’re raising less invoices and as a result, the amount of money that you will have coming into your bank account over the next few months will be significantly reduced.

Now, you may well have enough money to get you through to when you return to normal levels of trade again, but when you get back to normal levels of trade you will have dwindled away your cash reserves and you will still have to wait 45 to 60 days to get paid for your new sales invoices.

So you’re going to have a funding gap, potentially, so how do you plug that funding gap?

This is where an Invoice Finance facility will be useful because if you have an Invoice Finance facility, as soon as you raise a sales invoice you can receive 85-90 percent of the value of that sales invoice into your bank account within 24 hours.

Now, with the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme you may well qualify for a guarantee to be provided, by the government, to the lender in order to put that facility into place.

This is something that we specialise in and my role is to make sure that you do not have to go to lots of different providers in order to find the best deal.

You apply solely to us and then we then take your application to the market and find the most suitable lender based on your sector, your turnover, and how your business has been trading. Once we find the most suitable lender, we then get
the best deal possible for you.

The best part of it is that this service does not actually cost you anything. The fee that we receive for doing this is paid for by the lender.

So, if you are a Scottish Transport or Haulage company and you are wanting to put into place an Invoice Financing facility then please fill out the Contact Us’ page on this website and we will work out what we can do to improve your cashflow.

 

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Bridging Finance and the impact of Coronavirus

We provide services to businesses who need assistance with all types of finance, including Bridging Finance.

Hi, my name is Graeme Shevas.

I help businesses who need assistance with Bridging Finance and I wanted to give an update on the Bridging Finance Market as a result of Coronavirus and any impacts that it may have had. The first thing to note, really, is that there are still plenty of bridging lenders out there willing to lend, but there have been a couple of impacts.

The main impact really is that some lenders have been withdrawing from the market, and other lenders are actually finding that the funds that they have available to lend are reduced. This is as a result of people who are coming to the end of a bridge and not being able to refinance, due to the current situation. They are finding that the bridges are lasting a little bit longer, so the funds aren’t coming back into the coffers in order to be able to loan them back out again. There are some lenders who have not completed on deals, or who have had deals that were not completed and have now withdrawn the offer of finance. So, it’s a bit of a mixed bag.

The main thing to note, really, is that the amount of money that is loaned out on a bridge has actually reduced as a result of the value decreasing. So, if you’re looking at a property transaction for the bridge and the loan-to-value against which it will be secured is probably, on average, about 10 percent down, largely to do with the valuations, in terms of getting a desktop valuation done and reducing the amount of risk involved in that.

So, the bottom line is that they are still available, there are lots of lenders, and if you have a funding gap and it wasn’t necessarily property related, maybe it was to do with business, as long as you can prove an exit, (i.e. a way of actually repaying it in a period of time, so maybe you’ve got other funds coming in our you’re waiting for some finance against a commercial property or you’re trying to sell something and the money has not come in yet but you desperately need it now) it’s still available.

Bridging Finance is a flexible bit of finance which will suit many needs. If this is something that is of interest to you or you want to discuss it further, you can reach me on 07776 257 342, email graeme@playfairfinance.co.uk or fill out the ‘Contact Us’ section on this website.

For more interesting hints and tips, you can also visit our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbvTGclIvFBNhr1GwC3rFSQ/videos