Close Invoice Finance Gears Up for Growth

About Close Invoice Finance - Invoice Discounting

Close Invoice Finance Limited started life as a small factoring company called Century Factors, based above a car showroom in Yeovil, Somerset. Century became one of the first acquisitions by Close Brothers and in 1993 their name was changed to Close Invoice Finance Limited.

Close Invoice Finance is a distinct business group within the Close Brothers Group, one of Europe’s most enterprising merchant banks and a FTSE top 250 listed company. Close Invoice Finance continues to grow at a rate that is ahead of the industry average and contributes more than 7% of the Close Brothers Group’s total revenue.

Extended capability is the key to growth

In order to enable them to achieve ambitious growth plans, Close Invoice Finance sought a new invoice discounting and factoring solution (asset based lending) that could deliver extended capabilities and a significant competitive advantage to their business. After considerable research and assessment of products on the market, the Close Invoice Finance management team decided that Citadel ID Invoice Discounting best matched their ambitions.

Rob Harris, IT & Strategy Director, Close Invoice Finance, explains “We required a solution that would enable us to build greater scale and opportunity into our business model. We wanted to find a partner who could help us redefine our marketplace and re-engineer our business model.”

Great expectations lead to greater achievements

The invoice discounting (asset based lending) solution that Close Invoice Finance required had to fulfil clearly defined criteria which included:

• To enable the business to work with customers whose revenues were otherwise too small or their ledger composition too complex or high-risk to service safely and cost-effectively
• Asset based lending to provide a transparent view of the underlying debt structure of clients through invoice level access
• To improve service levels and provide self-service options for clients (through asset based lending)
• Receivables financing to achieve greater account management efficiencies and, therefore, lower costs in order to be able to offer customers more flexible and more competitive pricing
• To increase overall control and significantly reduce risk (through asset based lending)

According to Rob Harris, Citadel ID trade receivables financing from Demica was the best route to meeting both their solutions criteria and business objectives. “Citadel ID receivables financing provides real-time comprehensive views on our clients accounts. This enables our business to be far more responsive and dynamic. The drill down capacity to invoice level detail provides a clear and comprehensive view of the status of each client and, as the system operates in real-time, we are now much less reliant on tacit knowledge. This is an important aspect of the project as Citadel ID receivables financing removes the risk component from the decision making process, which is a critical factor in building scale. Citadel ID Invoice Discounting’s breadth of trade receivables financing functionality which includes limit triggers, fund availability, warning flags etc. will enable us to reduce our operational costs by a dramatic 50%.”

The Citadel ID and Demica advantage

Citadel ID trade receivables financing is operated via a secure web user interface and can be provided as either an in-house or hosted solution. One of Citadel ID’s key differentiators is its ability to record such high levels of contractually agreed information on an individual client basis and exceptional detail at the invoice level. This allows Close to work with clients that they would have previously had to decline without asset based lending, creating broader opportunity for business expansion through a more diversified and dynamic client portfolio. In creating Citadel ID, Demica leveraged its knowledge and expertise in managing complex trade receivables financing transactions and its in-depth understanding of the fundamental business requirements of the Invoice Discounting, Asset Based Lending and Trade Receivables Financing marketplace.