Will my customers know I am using invoice finance?

This is one of the most common worries, and the reassuring answer is that you can usually keep it private if you want to.

Invoice finance comes in disclosed and confidential forms:

• Confidential invoice discounting. You carry on issuing invoices and chasing payment exactly as you do now. The funding happens in the background, and your customers need not know a finance provider is involved.
• Factoring. The funder takes over collecting payment from your customers, which means they do see that a funder is in the picture. The trade-off is that you hand off credit control and chasing, which some businesses value.
• Selective invoice finance. You fund only the invoices or customers you choose, rather than the whole ledger, which keeps things contained.

Whether a lender will offer a confidential facility depends partly on your business and the strength of your own credit control processes, since they are relying on you to keep collecting well.

The old worry that using invoice finance signals distress is dated. It is a mainstream working-capital tool used by healthy, growing businesses, and with a confidential facility the question of what customers think largely does not arise. If keeping it private matters to you, say so early and we will focus on lenders who offer it.