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Sign fabrication and installation companies get can get a wide range of project sizes. An associate I recently spoke with handles orders from $1000 to $60,000. A common problem for this gentleman’s business is when the projects on the higher …

A recent survey of business owners by the NFIB has gotten a lot of attention. It showed that small business owners are pessimistic about the current state of the economy. Other data suggests that small business lending is down (This article is exceptional, please read) due to the expiration of stimulus measures that offered 90 percent guarantees on SBA loans. Although there may be new legislation to return guarantees to 90 percent, it may take some time before it becomes effective. There are also talks of a double dip recession that could undo the recovery process and send us into another recession.

With the current uncertainty, managing business risk is of utmost importance.

A financing decision that the State of California is in the process of making is the perfect model of how asset based lending can be used. The State of California needs money to run their organization (sound familiar business owners?). However the State is not in a good position to take on more debt. In their case it is because they already have a great deal of debt but in the case of business owners, they may be too small, too young or perceived as “too risky” to borrow. However the State of California has an asset, in their case office buildings, that they are considering using as collateral in a ‘sale lease-back’ arrangement so that they can make use of the cash value of the asset while still maintaining use of the property. This is the prototypical model for asset based lending. Let me break it down further.

Factoring tends to be widely misunderstood. It is not a ‘traditional’ lending arrangement and most businesses owners have limited exposure to factoring, if any at all. Because of this, there are many myths and misconceptions about factoring I hope to dispel here.

Myth #1

The most widely accepted myth is that factoring is too expensive. There is some truth to that statement; 2 to 6% over 30 days is a lot. However, there are many ways to offset this cost. Using the funds to complete deals that otherwise would have not been financially possible is the best use of factoring funds. In this case you are increasing your profits as a direct result of factoring. If your business is already at capacity and cannot take on new sales, it means your business needs to grow. Factoring is ideal for growing companies as it provides flexible financing that grows with your business. Factoring funds can be used to purchase new equipment, hire new employees or open a new location, all of which can increase your long term profits. Factoring can also allow you to take advantage of volume and/or early payment discounts which can affectively off set the factoring fees. Bottom line is when factoring funds can be put to good use, it is expensive not to factor.

The Obama administration has come up with a new initiative to help small businesses. Details of this plan can be found here. The goal of this initiative is to increase access to capital through tax breaks on small businesses investments and lending incentives to smaller community banks which should lead to job creation. Here is a break down of the initiative.

To increase small businesses access to loans a $30 billion “Small Business Lending Fund” (SBLF) will be created. Access to this fund will be limited to banks with less then $1 billion in assets as to target smaller community banks that are a staple of small businesses lending. The funds will given to banks with a sliding scale interest rate that gets lower as small business lending is increased compared to previous years. For example, if a bank were to increase their small business lending 10% or more compared to 2009 numbers, the rate they would pay for the SBLF funds would be 1%; if small business lending stayed the level the rate would be 9%.