£75,000 cash advance - with no need to make repayment

Cashflow can be a challenge in many sectors, but particularly in retail - and chemist shops are not immune. 

Competition from supermarkets and the chains can mean tight margins. Keeping a positive cash flow can be difficult, even when there is apparently a healthy turnover and plenty of customers coming in.

We recently helped a chemist shop owner raise the additional funding his business urgently needed with an innovative method.  

It is a solution which could provide a lifeline for many chemists who are struggling with high costs and tight profits. It can help provide much-needed investment in the business - and there is no need to make any repayments.

Sadly, chemist shops are not immune from the downturn on the high street.

The economic power of supermarkets and the large chain chemists makes it difficult for small operators to compete on price. Keeping prices low while bringing in top quality goods and proving a professional service is a constant challenge - one which requires investment, often with an injection of capital. However, tight margins mean that profits are small, and there is little spare cash left over to deal with loan repayments. 

Turning to Rangewell for help with funding

We were recently approached by a chemist whose business had an apparently excellent turnover in excess of £1 million each year, but which, because of tight margins, was facing continuous cashflow worries. 

The owner had first arranged an Unsecured Loan of £7,500 to help deal with his cashflow issues and bring in stock - but at 2.5% per month, the repayments were simply making his cashflow problems even worse.

He called us at Rangewell for a solution.

We always work closely with our clients, and we looked at his accounts with him. We saw that turnover was seasonal - there were simply more people coming in during the winter months. Some of the summer season was particularly challenging, and that would mean problems for the affordability of traditional loan repayments. 

We were able to find a lender able to offer a Secured Loan of £25,000 for 7%. This might have provided a short-term solution, but it might still mean the pharmacist would need to borrow again in a year or two, while being faced with ongoing repayments. 

Fortunately, we knew there was an alternative.

A Merchant Cash Advance

The need to make fixed monthly repayments during slow months might present problems with a traditional loan. A Merchant Cash Advance, or MCA, presents no such problem.

They can be ideal for any business that receives a high proportion of its takings from card payments - and provide funds without the need to make regular repayments - or indeed repayments of any kind.

With an MCA, the provider works with the card payment processing company and can offer a cash advance equal to the monthly card takings of a business. They will then take a percentage of every card transaction made to the business until the cash advance and their fees are paid off.

The advance is paid back automatically as customers make card payments.

It can provide a simple way for businesses, and especially those in the retail sector, to raise the funds they need, simply because there are no fixed monthly payments.

Instead of causing problems with a fixed drain on your cashflow, the MCA will keep pace with the level of business that you do.

It means your customers repay your cash advance for you - and the more business you do and the more customers pay by card, the faster the advance is paid off. 

Like most retailers, our client was taking an increasing proportion of payments by card.

This made it simple to provide an advance of £55,000. It meant that he could pay off his existing debts, and have a reserve to call on when cashflow was causing problems.

How we helped

With the growing use of payment cards, there is an increasing number of lenders providing MCA funding. Their fees and the percentages they take to fund repayment will differ. Getting the agreement that is right for your business can be essential to keep costs down.

We found the MCA provider who was prepared to offer the most attractive fee structures to our client. We helped him make the necessary arrangements - which brought his business the funds it so vitally needed in a matter of days. 

At Rangewell we can help you arrange all types of business funding - including MCA arrangements. Call us if you face a funding challenge - we can help you find the answers.