Bluevine Invoice Factoring
Check out their score on Bluevine reviews
Bluevine Factoring Information:
- Headquarters: Redwood City, CA
- In Business Since: 2014
- Direct Lender: Yes
- A+ rated by Better Business Bureau
About Bluevine
Bluevine, located in Palo Alto, California, provides a variety of funding options including invoice financing and accounts receivable factoring.
The company was founded by Eyal Lifshitz, a former venture capitalist at Greylock Partners. Lishitz reportedly remembers the hassle of waiting for payment reimbursement from various health insurance companies and Medicaid from his father’s physical therapy business. This led Eyal to eventually start his online factoring company.
An invoice factoring company, known as the factor, purchases outstanding invoices at a discount to their face value and advances a percentage to the customer. Doing so provides clients with near-immediate funding, while the invoices remain unpaid by the account debtors. When the invoices are eventually paid, the remainder of the percentage, less the factoring fee, is returned to their customer. Also, rebates are distributed the same day.
Unlike traditional invoice factoring companies, Bluevine provides online factoring.* Similar to online competitors such as Fundbox, there is no paperwork. However, Fundbox is not technically factoring company and there’s limited communications with customer service representatives. At Bluevine, there appears to be more representatives available to help. Both companies improve net working capital for business clients.
Bluevine Factoring
The company generally advances between 85% and 90%, as quickly as the same day if you opt for an immediate wire transfer. While this will cost you $15, it allows same day funding instead of potentially 3 day funding with a free ACH transfer. If you are in a real cash flow bind, the wire is probably the way to go.
A major difference between Bluevine and some invoice factoring companies is the transparency of fees. Certain factoring companies have the reputation of having different layers of fees, sometimes hidden. Their fees are displayed right on their website for all prospects to see.
Small businesses are the focus and the company can factor invoices as tiny as $500. Also, they have credit lines as low as $5,000. As we highlight in our Bluevine reviews page, they do not engage in factoring receivables from the medical or healthcare companies.
Bluevine Invoice Factoring Info:
- Application Time: 5 Minutes
- Funding Approval Time: Within 24 hours
- Advance Rates: Usually 85-90%
- Monthly Minimum: No
- Dedicated Rep: Yes
- Minimum Invoice Amount: $500
Bluevine Asset Based Lending
When your business “graduates” from invoice factoring, it has access to more traditional business lending opportunities such as a small business line of credit or a commercial loan. In addition to accounts receivable factoring, Bluevine provides alternative financing solutions for small businesses looking to improve cash flow. These solutions include both factoring and asset based lending.
Asset-based loans can be backed by nearly any asset-inventory, equipment, real estate, accounts receivable, etc. but they predominantly look at unpaid invoices. Typical lines of credit range from $5,000 to $250,000 but are advertised to as high as $2.5 million on their website. The more equipment and inventory your business has, the higher the credit line.
Their asset based lending solutions include revolving credit lines with rates advertised as low as 4.8% (from Bluevine’s website August, 2018). Further, there are no prepayment fees, maintenance fees and borrowers don’t incur unused credit fees (typical among many alternative lenders).
Further, the credit line amounts and terms are valid for two weeks only. So, if you get approved for a credit line and are on the fence on whether to tap into it, realize the line could change or be removed entirely after 14 days.
Line of credit rates are also generally variable so if you anticipate rising interest rates, it might make sense to tap the line sooner than later.