Advanced system attracts Heap & Partners to SFS invoice finance
Wirral, UK-based company Heap & Partners, which manufactures and distributes fluid control equipment, has become the latest invoice finance customer of Siemens Financial Services (SFS).
Before becoming a customer of SFS, Heap had experience of several other invoice finance providers, and it had been with its existing financier for approximately two years and decided to see if a better deal was available from another provider.
By using invoice finance, when a company invoices their customer, up to 90% of the approved invoice total is immediately advanced by the finance provider, with the remaining 10% paid once their customer settles the balance.
This provides the company with essential working capital so it can benefit from improved cash flow without having to wait for bills to be paid.
Diane Duffey, financial director at Heap & Partners, explained the company has used invoice finance for several years to ensure availability of working capital.
“In particular, we need to keep appropriate stock levels in order to be able to respond efficiently and effectively to our customer’s needs. Invoice finance means we always have the funds available to achieve this.
“We were undertaking a regular review of our finance providers to make sure that we were receiving the best rates when we were introduced to SFS’ invoice finance service. As well as the cost aspect, with our existing provider we were experiencing delays in notification of payments. A bill may have been settled but we sometimes wouldn’t receive confirmation in a timely manner. This created obvious difficulties for our customer relations,” Duffey said.
After an initial meeting, over a period of time, SFS met with Heap to understand its business, its goals, and invoice finance requirements.
“As well as being offered a better price than our existing deal, the biggest attraction for us was the SFS system,” said Diane.
“It’s intuitive, offers complete transparency and has cut down on the time we have to spend reconciling our accounts.”
Drawdown of funds now only takes a matter of hours and SFS’ online system also gives the company real-time access to funding and payments.
“The service from the SFS team has also been impressive. We have two points of contact and they are both very responsive and knowledgeable. With some other providers you can be obliged to deal with several different people, but we really like having a dedicated team,” concluded Duffey.
Stephen McKeag, head of sales for Northwest England at Invoice Finance Siemens Financial Services, added: “As Heap’s experience demonstrates, it is good practice for companies to regularly review their invoice finance providers and the service they are receiving. Although some business may be wary of changing providers, the change can be managed very smoothly and can result in saved time and money together with improved levels of support.”
