737 Ltd provides transport for UK and European overnight palletised distribution and made Ultimate Finance their funding partner of choice soon after commencing trading back in 2020. Since then, Ultimate Finance has been supporting the business’ ambitions through the provision of a tailored Invoice Finance facility that allows them to draw down the funds tied up in invoices yet to be paid to help provide access to ongoing working capital to facilitate growth.
Alongside the funding, the facility also comes with Debtor Protection, offering additional peace of mind by providing protection in the event a customer becomes unable to pay for their orders. Head of Relationship Management Sarah Furze explains, “Our Invoice Finance facilities can be tailored to the unique needs of each client, and in this case 737 Ltd was looking to insure some debtors whose risk profile was higher than others. Debtor Protection comes in various forms, and one of the main differences is whether a business wishes to protect its entire ledger or be more selective and decide to only protect individual clients”.
With the £200k Invoice Finance facility in place, 737 Ltd’s future looked bright and their path to growth started to accelerate. Nonetheless, their forward planning and risk-management decisions became essential when their biggest customer unfortunately went into liquidation with a large open balance of just under £100k which they were suddenly unable to pay back. Sarah says, “For many businesses, this could very well have been the end of the road: losing your biggest customer and finding yourself with a large hole in your balance sheet is an event that can be very hard to survive”.
737 Ltd director Darren Towell adds, “This was a really tough time for our business, and with the unfortunate demise of another company we were suddenly faced with a lot of uncertainty as to our own future and our employees’ jobs. The team at Ultimate Finance was key to keeping moving through it all, and we were very happy to have planned for this type of adversity and elected to add Debtor Protection to our funding solution as it really helped to cushion the unexpected blow”.
The company was able to make a claim to cover the most recent invoices which helped to recuperate a portion of the balance, a key resolution that meant they were able to keep trading despite having just lost access to an important source of trade. Darren continues, “We did have to write off some of the debt in the end, but at least we were able to get quickly back on our feet and the business was able to keep moving and protect our teams’ jobs thanks to the support of Ultimate Finance. Since then, we have taken on new clients and upgraded the Debtor Protection to cover our entire ledger to further reduce the potential for similar incidents in the future, which has helped to strengthen us on our journey to growth”.
Find out more about our Invoice Finance facilities or speak to our team of dedicated Relationship Managers to discuss Debtor Protection.
