I had a telephone call from a factoring company on 11th September and they weren’t ringing to wish me a happy birthday but to tell me that one of the clients that I had placed with them had been a naughty boy and that a meeting had been arranged to discuss whether or not the company was insolvent and what action would be taken.
This was the second factoring company that I had placed this company with as the first wanted it managed it away as he had breached the agreement several times with them too so I placed it with the current funder having first read the riot act so that he was well aware what would happen if he misbehaved again.
On Thursday I had a phone call from a different factoring company telling me that the one client that I had with them had given notice as they were transferring to one of the smaller factoring companies that I wouldn’t give houseroom too due to their reputation for signing up clients first then doing due diligence afterwards.
It seems that this company had also been skating on thin ice with several substantial invoices being re-aged plus other little tricks of the trade. The client had requested an increase in their facility limit which the factor rejected as turnover hadn’t grown.
As if September wasn’t bad enough I had a call on Friday from a third factoring company to tell me that my largest client was about to cease trading as they had fallen out with their major supplier. The owner also decided that he had enough of the business and didn’t intend to restart.
I’ve had enough of September already and can’t wait for October even though a rather nice £30m turnover invoice discounting enquiry has helped take the sting out of the month
It seems that October wasn’t any different to September as I have lost a further two substantial clients so far this month although for different reasons as in both cases factoring has been successful enough that both companies can now fund their working capital requirements from their own resources.
Interestingly enough one factoring company contacted me to tell me what was happening but in the second (larger) case it was left to me to query why the commission figure for the month was zero.