As we all know, the last few years haven’t been easy for any of us. What haven’t we faced in our experience of the 20s? From pandemics, to war, to inflation, and even scorching first-hand experience of climate change. These past couple of years have been eventful to say the least. And businesses especially have suffered the brunt of it.

Throughout this blog I will be listing a few top tips on how to make your cash flow with ease.

Cash flow forecast

Cash flow forecasting is a great way to maintain control over your cash flow. It gives you a good idea of your monthly ingoing and outgoings so that you can plan you purchasing with that in mind. Read more about cash flow forecasting here.

Take advantage of finance options

Many are unaware of the benefits that financing provides. Finance allows you to keep cash in the business to be used elsewhere. So, whether you need to pay off a tax bill or invest in new equipment for the business, finance is a great way to do this without causing any harm to your cash flow.

We offer affordable financing for corporation tax as well as VAT loans. So instead of paying upfront and in full, we allow you to spread the cost over a period of time.

But it doesn’t stop there, our parent company, WestWon is a well-established provider of asset finance. Leasing is an effective way to obtain the latest equipment without breaking the bank.

Send invoices out ASAP

The quicker you send out the invoice to your client the better. This way, the likelihood of you getting paid on time or even early is increased! Although, it is also important that you have constructed your invoice in a way that is easy for your client to understand. With emphasis on including the date as well as outlining clear instructions on forms of payment.

Conduct customer credit checks

By doing this, you will be able to make better judgement in customers by checking their credit before making that sale. If the customer has a poor credit score you can prepare yourself for late payments and set interest rates accordingly.

Contact Us

Should you wish to explore your business finance options, please give us a call on 01494 956 871. Or send an email to [email protected].

Below is a case study about a client of ours who organised, and continues to organise, a short term loan with us to pay their VAT bill. In our VAT Loans case study we discuss who they are. We also discuss why they chose to organise a loan and why they decided to undertake it with us. The information collected came directly from the Finance Director. This is so that we can offer the best information and advice to you. If you and your business are thinking of organising a VAT Loan for your next VAT bill, then please don’t hesitate to contact us. A member of our friendly team will be more than happy to help.

A bit about them

We have been working with this company since 2012. However, their journey started in 2003 when they started trading. They are a mid sized firm of architects and so far we have arranged four short term loans for them every year. As we have been doing this for many years now, we have developed a strong relationship with many of the employees and will continue to develop these over the next many years working with them.

The four short term loans we have been providing have been used to cover both their quarterly VAT bill and their HMRC Corporation Tax. For the VAT bill the repayment term is always 3 months. However, we usually defer the first repayment for a month after when the bill was paid. For the Corporation Tax loans they were mixed. One was repayable over 6 months and another 2 were over a 1 year period.

Comparing HMRC VAT Loans to a bank loan

In this case, a bank loan would actually work out to be cheaper. This is therefore a very viable option for our client to take. However, there are a few challenges that comes with this. They charge a one off administration fee, usually 1% of the loan amount. The same applies for an overdraft. There is also a mountain of paperwork as well as an increase in the time it would take to organise it. But the real reason our client chose to go through us here at VAT Loans was so that they could have an alternative funding line. This means they wouldn’t have to use up an existing bank facility. Going back to a bank manager every quarter can send the wrong message as well. We also take care of all the admin for you. We pay HMRC directly so there is no stress on your behalf.

Paying your bills on time

Like any other business in any other sector, this firm of Architects want and need to pay their VAT bills on time. Their business is profitable and they are looking to expand soon. As shown above, they are a very successful business, which is why even they are open to using short-term VAT loans. They are using it to build on their successes as opposed to a loan term financial planning issue. Their view on the situation is that it is cheaper than receiving a fine. This is as well as being much simpler and more flexible than a bank loan. Therefore, for all the reasons above, we hope to continue working with them long into the future!

Contact Us

If you would like more information on our VAT Loans Case Study, then head over to our contact page on our website to speak to a member of our team. Furthermore, if you would like to talk to us over the phone then please call 01494 956 871 or email [email protected].

Here at VAT Loans we offer finance for a range of things and hope to help you in your business’ finance journey. We will provide you with a 5* customer service experience and we will tailor the agreement to fit you and your needs. We offer finance for a range of business loans which you can read more about below. Hopefully this blog will show you the benefits not just to working with us here at VAT Loans, but also to leasing in general. If you would like to know more, then please read on.

What do we offer finance for?

Here at VAT Loans it may not surprise you that we focus a lot on arranging VAT Loan agreements! However, you may not know what else we can finance. We offer finance for a range of business loans. These include Corporation Tax Loans, Professional Indemnity Insurance funding and Bridging VAT finance. We can also provide finance for professions loans, equipment loans, dilapidation loans, working capital and peer-to-peer loans. We have explained some of these in a previous blog. Offering a wide range of business loans is possible due to our team of professionals here at VAT Loans. Although some of the business loans have different processes, they are all easy and straightforward to complete. Therefore, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us using our contact details at the bottom of this blog.

Why choose VAT Loans?

VAT Loans has helped thousands of customers with their finance agreements. Below are just a few reasons why you should choose us to help with your next finance agreement.

• Industry leading rates from 2.5%
• Decision in 48 hours or less
• 95% acceptance rate
• 5* customer service
• Dedicated account manager

What will finance do for your business journey?

There are many benefits to leasing and finance, one of them being how it helps your cash flow. It allows you to keep funds in the business and use them elsewhere for other projects. Another is that you are able to use alternative funding lines. Instead of using an existing bank facility, you can open up other sources of funding. This will look better too when applying for loans. The process is also fast and simple. We pay HMRC directly for you so that there is no hassle or worry form your end. There is also an easy to use repayment schedule as we use fixed monthly payments. This also allows you to budget better as you know what is coming out of your bank account and when.

Contact Us

For more information on how we can help you with your business’ finance journey or for a free no obligation quote, please give a member of the VAT Loans team a call on 01494 956 871 or email us on [email protected].

Throughout this blog I will be breaking down a list of VAT finance lenders across the UK. VAT finance is a specialist form of lending that companies in the UK use to fund quarterly HMRC VAT bills. Historically, it was mainly professions such as solicitors, accountants, and architects that would finance VAT. Today, all sorts of UK companies fund their VAT for a whole variety of reasons.

So where do you find a list of VAT finance lenders in the UK?

VAT Loans are a key finance company in the UK, funding VAT for our clients. We have searched for such a list and as far as we can see, there is no definitive list of VAT finance lenders out there.

However, luckily for you, we have independently compiled a list of UK VAT Finance lenders from a deep dive on Google. Hopefully this blog will be helpful to those seeking VAT funding exploring their options. So, let’s get into it, we can split the list into two parts.

Funders

Firstly, there are the funders, the actual finance companies that lend the money.

Premium Credit Limited is by far the largest company operating in this space. They call themselves ‘The number one premium finance company in the UK and Ireland.’ With 2.1m customers and processing 24 million direct debits per year, we as an independent company will agree, they are the largest. Please note, only a small fraction of their business is VAT funding, most of the other funding is for insurance premiums, golf club memberships, school fees, train season tickets etc. It maybe such you already deal with them on the insurance side or in a personal capacity. However, contacting them for VAT funding will be more challenging, it is a lot easier to go via a broker such as ourselves.

There are other funders in the market such as Shawbrook, White Oak, Federal Capital, Time Finance, who fund VAT. Again, some of these companies will not deal with an end user directly. For those that do, it can sometimes be a bit challenging to navigate around who to speak to and how to deal with them.

Brokers

Secondly, there are brokers (the middle men) that offer VAT funding.

VAT Loans have scoured the market analysing who is our competition on Google and have stumbled across 23 other companies. Three of these seem to be ‘internet only’ business types. Although, they would much rather be referred to as ‘Fintech’ companies. In summary, great websites, but lacking that personal touch of human interaction. We have not checked their accounts, but as a guess, they will be losing money.

All the others are brokers who advertise the fact they offer VAT funding for UK companies. We have individually reviewed all these companies. On average, they employ between two and ten people and offer a range of finance facilities for companies. For the record, they all seem decent companies, many of them have been trading for a long time. So that’s always promising.

Competitive HMRC VAT funding UK

The market for VAT funding in the UK is competitive. As you can see above, anyone can put ‘VAT Loans’ into Google and up comes a list of companies that will help you. And from what we can see, most companies are offering competitive repayment terms.

Another thing to bear in mind as a customer is that our funding partners limit how much we can earn in commission. In summary, all of us intermediary brokers are swimming in the same pool trying to win the same business. We all have to be competitive. And there is nothing wrong with a bit of healthy competition.

Best UK VAT funder?

Stating who is the best UK VAT funder is very difficult. Rates are competitive, loan agreements are often worded the same. From what we see, there are only two differentiators:

1. Credit acceptance – this is where one funder rejects a deal and another one accepts it. Having a wider panel of UK VAT funders does help.
2. Whilst some people are happy and content just to undertake business via email, other companies – especially those new to funding VAT – will wish for some more human interaction.

We cannot comment on other UK HMRC VAT funding companies with regards to their level of service. However, what we can say is that to our customers, service level is of paramount importance.

1. Phone conversations are important. We must answer the phone and not just communicate via a chat facility or email.
2. Speed and urgency are the number one priority. Most of our business comes in the third week of the month. We then have to arrange credit, send out documents, and get HMRC paid by the 7^th of the following month. (Over 50% of our clients will leave their VAT funding to the last minute.)
3. Understanding the process and ensuring that a VAT loan is put in place quickly is often at the top of a clients’ agenda. Having the detailed knowledge from doing many VAT loan deals in the past does help. Interestingly, when we look at our 23 competitors, most of the smaller independently owned companies do have the in-depth knowledge. We have not tested the ‘fintech’ companies, but our gut feel is they will not have a great a knowledge pool compared to the likes of us.

We hope this blog proves useful to you in your decision making. Should you have any questions on the VAT loan process, creditworthiness, or anything else, we would be happy to help. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch, give us a call on 01494 611 456. Or send an email to [email protected]. Or, if you have any questions about VAT in general, you can always visit the HMRC  website here.