At a Glance
Sector: Construction – Maintenance & Drainage
Location: South East
Established: April 2021
Facility: £50,000 selective
Challenge: Extended payment terms and high invoice volumes creating a growing cash flow gap
Solution: Selective facility against longest-paying contractor
Introduced by: Compare Factoring
This business raises multiple invoices every day. Each one somewhere between £100 and £300 – one invoice per job, covering everything from routine maintenance to out-of-hours call outs. A job comes in by email with a number, address, description and price. The work gets done, confirmation goes back, and an invoice follows. Then the next one. And the next.
That’s what running a maintenance and drainage business looks like. Constant, high-volume, and completely dependent on everything further up the payment chain moving at the same pace.
The business was set up in April 2021 by two directors – one 24 years old handling operations, admin and finances, the other a 50/50 partner. Between them they’d built a steady client base working with a handful of well-known main contractors, and by late 2025 things were moving in the right direction. They were taking on more staff and expecting turnover with their biggest client to nearly double, from around £30k a month to between £50-60k.
The Challenge
Then the payment terms changed. What used to be 30 days became 30 days end of month. On any single invoice that’s an extra couple of weeks. But when you’re raising multiple invoices every day, each one now sitting in the system for longer, the effect stacks up. Tens of thousands of pounds worth of completed work waiting to clear while wages still need paying and costs still go out.
Up to this point the directors had been managing the cash flow themselves. They’d never used invoice finance before. But the pace of growth meant what had been manageable was becoming a stretch, and with the workload only increasing, the gap between money going out and money coming in was getting wider every month.
The Solution
When they came to us through Compare Factoring, the picture was straightforward. A well-rated main contractor, a strong work pipeline, and a cash flow challenge that was purely about timing. The business wasn’t struggling – it was growing, and the growth was what was creating the pressure.
Neither director was a homeowner, which is the point where a lot of funders would have stopped the conversation. For many lenders, no property means no security means no deal. We don’t see it that way. The strength of the debtor, the quality of the work pipeline, and the way the business was being run told us everything we needed to know.
We structured a £50,000 selective facility focused on the one contractor with the longer payment terms. They didn’t need to put their entire ledger through – just the bit that was causing the squeeze. It meant they could fund the invoices where the wait was longest while keeping their other client relationships running as normal.
For a business raising high volumes of small invoices that had never used invoice finance before, the process needed to be simple. Something that slotted into how they already worked – job in, work done, invoice raised, funded – without adding layers of admin on top.
The Outcome
The facility gave the directors an alternative to funding the gap out of their own pockets. With the cash flow piece solved, the focus could shift back to where it belonged – taking on more work, growing the team, and making the most of a pipeline that showed no signs of slowing down.
