Business Loans In Canada: Financing Solutions Via Alternative Finance & Traditional Funding

Business loans and finance for a business just may have gotten good again? The pursuit of credit and funding of cash flow solutions for your business often seems like an eternal challenge, even in the best of times, let alone any industry or economic crisis. Let’s dig in.

Since the 2008 financial crisis there’s been a lot of change in finance options from lenders for corporate loans. Canadian business owners and financial managers have excess from everything from peer-to-peer company loans, varied alternative finance solutions, as well of course as the traditional financing offered by Canadian chartered banks.

Those online business loans referenced above are popular and arose out of the merchant cash advance programs in the United States. Loans are based on a percentage of your annual sales, typically in the 15-20% range. The loans are certainly expensive but are viewed as easy to obtain by many small businesses, including retailers who sell on a cash or credit card basis.

Depending on your firm’s circumstances and your ability to truly understand the different choices available to firms searching for SME COMMERCIAL FINANCE options. Those small to medium sized companies ( the definition of ‘ small business ‘ certainly varies as to what is small – often defined as businesses with less than 500 employees! )

How then do we create our road map for external financing techniques and solutions? A simpler way to look at it is to categorize these different financing options under:

Debt / Loans

Asset Based Financing

Alternative Hybrid type solutions

Many top experts maintain that the alternative financing solutions currently available to your firm, in fact are on par with Canadian chartered bank financing when it comes to a full spectrum of funding. The alternative lender is typically a private commercial finance company with a niche in one of the various asset finance areas

If there is one significant trend that’s ‘ sticking ‘it’s Asset Based Finance. The ability of firms to obtain funding via assets such as accounts receivable, inventory and fixed assets with no major emphasis on balance sheet structure and profits and cash flow ( those three elements drive bank financing approval in no small measure ) is the key to success in ABL ( Asset Based Lending ).

Factoring, aka ‘ Receivable Finance ‘ is the other huge driver in trade finance in Canada. In some cases, it’s the only way for firms to be able to sell and finance clients in other geographies/countries.

The rise of ‘ online finance ‘ also can’t be diminished. Whether it’s accessing ‘ crowdfunding’ or sourcing working capital term loans, the technological pace continues at what seems a feverish pace. One only has to read a business daily such as the Globe & Mail or Financial Post to understand the challenge of small business accessing business capital.

Business owners/financial mgrs often find their company at a ‘ turning point ‘ in their history – that time when financing is needed or opportunities and risks can’t be taken. While putting or getting new equity in the business is often impossible, the reality is that the majority of businesses with SME commercial finance needs aren’t, shall we say, ‘ suited’ to this type of funding and capital raising. Business loan interest rates vary with non-traditional financing but offer more flexibility and ease of access to capital.

We’re also the first to remind clients that they should not forget govt solutions in business capital. Two of the best programs are the GovernmentSmall Business Loan Canada (maximum availability = $ 1,000,000.00) as well as the SR&ED program which allows business owners to recapture R&D capital costs. Sred credits can also be financed once they are filed.

Those latter two finance alternatives are often very well suited to business start up loans. We should not forget that asset finance, often called ‘ ABL ‘ by those Bay Street guys, can even be used as a loan to buy a business.

If you’re looking to get the right balance of liquidity and risk coupled with the flexibility to grow your business seek out and speak to a trusted, credible and experienced Canadian business financing advisor with a track record of business finance success who can assist you with your funding needs.

Explore Asset And Sales Finance Solutions With Your Bank

If you’re starting up a business, it can be hard to grasp the terminology you need in order to speak to your bank about funds; when it comes to discussing asset and sales finance, for instance, things can get tricky. It is, firstly, important to know what asset and sales finance is: a service through which banks help businesses obtain a range of equipment, including plant and machinery, commercial vehicles, IT equipment, office furniture and cars. Essentially, sales financing will help you get quick access to cash, while asset financing will help fund business equipment.Many banks offer several cost-effective and expedient sales financing solutions; and with such solutions, businesses can find enough working capital to be able to operate. Two sales financing solutions are factoring and invoice discounting. With factoring (recourse and non-recourse),up to 95% of the value of approved invoices can be advanced within a given period of time with the balance being paid on receipt. And while invoice discounting (also recourse and non-recourse) functions in a similar way, there is a crucial difference between the two: in factoring, the client’s customers are made aware of the bank’s involvement with the business; in invoice discounting they are not.Another method of sales financing used by many banks is stock finance; this allows you to release as much as 60% of the funds tied up in eligible stock through a completely flexible system. This will release finance that is usually not available for working capital needs.Asset financing solutions will help you gain assets in an economical way, without eating into your cash reserves. As with sales financing, banks will often offer a range of asset finance solutions to its business customers. Hire Purchase, for example, can help you acquire the asset you need right away, but payments can be spread across the life of the asset in question. This may also allow you to keep the asset at the end of your term for a particular fee. Operating Lease asset finance will allow you to benefit from a particular asset, while the bank itself takes on the risk of losing its value; the rental and return conditions for the asset are fixed at the outset.Many banks will offer a variety of asset finance products that cover the needs of a wide range of businesses, be they technological or agricultural. Barclays Asset and Sales Finance [http://www.business.barclays.co.uk/BRC1/jsp/brccontrol?site=bbb&task=channelFWgroup&value=7148], for instance, offer a Technology Lease asset finance product to help finance your technology needs, as well as an Agricultural Lease, which offers finance to buy machinery, vehicles and land, as well as many other benefits. So if you’re planning to start up a business, or you run an established business in need of asset and sales financing products, check out your bank’s asset and sales financing solutions to see what difference they can make.

The Power of Google

Everyone has heard of Google. In every country, every town, every city, even by sea, or an island in the middle of nowhere, you can be sure that Google will be wherever you have Internet access.Google can be used for anything. From finding a long lost sibling, to finding your knight in shining armor. You just type what you want and like a genie, Google will be sure to provide you the best and most relative results. Google can be used for anything, good or evil, making money with it, or lose a big chunk of change fast. It is truly amazing all of the information we are able to obtain with a few swipes on our keyboard. Just sit back and sip your coffee while you read a good book, watch a new movie, listen to the newest music videos, talk to your loved ones, or make some money. All using this powerful search engine.So why is Google so great for business? It’s not just great for business it is essential for any business you intend to do on line anywhere in this Internet realm of wonders. So let’s talk Google.First you have Google AdWords.A very scary thing to jump into at first for most of the internet marketers out there. It is a real investment, not free. But the results if done right can be truly amazing. If you ask any top earner in any network marketing or MLM business you will find they all use Google AdWords to get leads and sales. How you advertise on GoogleAdWords is the most important. If not worded right or if against Google policy you could lose some money and get the all to well known “Google Slap”. How do you avoid this you may ask? Well, simply research, read all you can about advertising with Google. Look up trendy keywords that you can find using ‘Google Trends’ or search a website for keywords most used using ‘Google Search-based Keyword Tool’. You do these things, research and test your ads and you will do just fine.Secondly let’s talk about Google AdSense.Google AdSense is free to use and you can make money with it. You have to be careful with AdSense because they will get you quick if you put more ads on your site than is allowed or if you have invalid clicks or page impressions. AdSense is great for a niche site. If you had a site, let’s say it was Allaboutchocolateflowers.com, you have all this useful information, recipes and recommended products, etc. Well when your Google Ads come in to play, they will be relevant to the page and will get lot’s of clicks for the ones looking for what you are talking about. Be sure before you do anything with any of Google’s programs you read all the fine print, do this so that you will not get the Google hand print on your face.Thirdly lets move onto getting indexed with Google.To do this you need to have a lot of relevant information and be very keyword specific. You also need to submit your site to Google to be crawled. Make sure your site is very keyword friendly. If it is not, you will not be getting indexed anytime soon and if you do get indexed, it will be on a page way in the back. Getting positioned on Google’s first page is difficult because everyone is butting heads and cracking necks just to get to that number one spot. Once you reach The throne of Google, hold your ground there. Google is a very powerful thing, if used wisely it can change your life and bring a lot of happiness in your wallet, if used wrongly it can have you crying in your sleep.Always be sure to research anything you are going to do with Google, test your ads, improve your sites,read all of the policies and once there, hold your ground and keep your crown.