what does "to factor" mean, n wat is a factoring agreement in accounting/financial environment? in the UK.
it would help if you can explain the term in accordance with credit control for a commercial firm, or in terms of relevance with a account department.
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Answer 1 :
A factor is a business that buys accounts recievable at less than face. The factor then deals with collections and bad debts.
Answer 2 :
a factor agreement is like a credit agreement whats happens is a company will sell products to a second company. the company buying the goods might want longer than normal crdit terms. so the selling companys goes to a FACTORING HOUSE the will pay the selling company for the goods that the other company has bought minus a commision charge. them the company that bought the goods will pay the FACTORING HOUSE. that way every one is happing A sells to B and C pays A less 10% then B pays C a=seller b=buyer c=factoring house
Answer 3 :
Factoring is simply a tool that a company can use to get in the money for the things it sells straight away. Supposing a company sold goods or services for a hundred pounds. It would then raise an invoice for a hundred pounds. This £100 would then be entered on to the company's Sales Ledger as a sale. Lets suppose though that the Customer took 3 months to pay the bill helping themselves to 90 days free credit as it were. Rather than wait 90 days for its money, the company simply 'sells' it's invoices to a factoring company for typically 90% of their value. In this case £90.00 The factoring company now owns the debt and chases the original customer for the £100 and when it gets it, makes a £10 profit over and above the £90 it paid for the £100 invoice. Where the company got its £90 straight away that improved the cash flow of the company but it effectively traded away 10% of its turnover in exchange for immediate cash flow. A smart company therefore (particularly where multi million pound turnover and high Debt Lag due to lazy payers) will incorporate10% of the overall price of their goods or services to allow for factoring in the first place. However there is a fine line to be drawn here. If it costs less than 10% of its turnover to chase its own debt (with a good credit control department for example) then factoring is not a viable alternative unless you can find one who will purchase your invoices for a percentage of invoice value less than that it would cost you to do it yourself. Hope you found this helpful.
Answer 4 :
"to factor" means to enter into a factoring agreement. Factoring is generally done for cashflow purposes. A company will take it debtors (people who owe them money) and give their names and addresses to a factoring company. The factoring company will then advance them money (normally discounted i.e the factor will only advance 80% of the total debtors) on the strength of the debtor list for a fee (typically 10% of the total amount owed but he customers). This means the factor takes over the credit control function for the company and chases it's debts for it. Factoring can be with or without recourse, with recourse meaning that if any debts are not collected the factor can seek the funds from the company and the company has to take the hit for the bad debt. With recourse factoring is typically cheaper than without recourse factoring for obvious reasons.
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