Factoring gets cash in sooner, because a facility advances most of an invoice's value within about a day, but you pay fees and interest on it every month, and they grow with the time your customers take. Automated credit control can't advance cash; it gets customers to pay sooner and more reliably, and you're not paying interest on the time they take. If the gap comes from slow or patchy chasing, credit control deals with the cause instead of paying to cover it every month.
In this article
The short version
- Factoring moves cash forward with an advance of up to 80% to 90%, charging a service fee plus a discount charge that grows the longer customers take.
- For a maintainer invoicing £60,000 a month with customers paying in 55 days, factoring costs roughly £4,983 to £26,211 a year.
- Automated credit control advances nothing and instead brings payment forward with timed reminders, payment links, direct debit and statutory interest.
- On Adfin's pricing, 120 invoices of £500 paid by bank or direct debit cost £504 a month, with no contract, and slow customers don't add to it.
- Cutting average payment time from 55 to 45 days would stop about £19,700 being tied up, while finance suits an immediate need your chasing didn't cause.
What each one does to the gap
You pay engineers weekly, buy parts up front and fuel vans every day, and your customers pay 30, 45 or 60 days after the job, sometimes much later. There are two ways to close that gap.
Factoring moves the cash forward. You sell your invoices to a finance provider, it advances most of their value, collects from your customers and pays you the rest, minus fees, when they settle. Your customers know, because they pay the factor. Invoice discounting works the same way but leaves collection with you and is usually confidential.
Credit control shrinks the gap itself. It doesn't put money in your account until a customer pays, but it makes that payment arrive sooner by chasing every invoice on time and making it easy to pay.
Adfin doesn't offer factoring, invoice discounting or cash advances. It's a payments and credit control platform, so it works on the second approach.
What factoring costs a typical maintenance firm
Factoring charges you for time. There's a service fee on the value of each invoice, typically 0.5% to 3%, and a discount charge, like interest, of about 1.5% to 5% a year on the money you draw. The longer your customers take, the more you pay.
Take a fire and security maintainer invoicing £60,000 a month, whose customers pay on average 55 days after invoice. Factoring the whole ledger with an 85% advance:
| Monthly cost | Low end | High end |
|---|---|---|
| Service fee on £60,000 | £300.00 | £1,800.00 |
| Discount charge on £51,000 for 55 days | £115.27 | £384.25 |
| Total a month | £415.27 | £2,184.25 |
| Total a year | £4,983.24 | £26,211.00 |
For that, the firm gets £51,000 within about a day of each month's invoicing, with conditions worth reading closely: facilities typically have a minimum term, and under a recourse facility you still carry the loss if a customer never pays. Your customers also start dealing with a finance company over payment, which a firm whose contracts renew on a long relationship with a facilities team may not want.
What automated credit control does instead
Late payment in field services is often mundane. The invoice sits in a facilities manager's inbox, the PO number is missing, the reminder arrives the day after their payment run, or the customer would have paid by card if you'd sent a link. Manual chasing slips the moment the week gets busy.
Automation covers the parts a person forgets:
- Reminders before and after the due date, over email, SMS or WhatsApp, on your schedule.
- A payment link in every message, so customers can pay by card, pay by bank, bank transfer or direct debit without asking for your details.
- Direct debit for recurring maintenance customers, collected on the date you set.
- Statutory interest and fixed compensation added automatically once an invoice is overdue, if you choose to charge it.
- Instalment plans for a customer who can't pay in full, so they pay in parts instead of going quiet.
With Adfin, core credit control is free and you pay per successful payment: 1% + 20p, with the percentage capped at £4 on bank and direct debit payments. At £60,000 a month across 120 invoices of £500 paid by bank or direct debit, that's £504 a month, with no contract and nothing charged on failed payments. The cost doesn't go up because a customer is slow. Adfin's AI agents can take on the judgement calls too, learning when and where each customer tends to respond and sending a statement when someone goes quiet, within rules you approve.
The cash it releases depends on your customers. At £60,000 a month you invoice about £1,973 a day, so every day you take off the average payment time frees roughly that amount, once, and keeps it free. Bringing 55 days down to 45 would stop about £19,700 being tied up in the ledger. Automation won't get money from a customer who has none or settle a genuine dispute about the work; those still need a person on the phone.
How to tell which problem you have
Look at your aged debt. If most overdue invoices sit with customers who pay reliably once someone reminds them, the gap is a chasing problem, and factoring would just charge you every month to cover it.
Finance is the better fit when the cash need is immediate and the cause isn't your chasing: a large new contract to fund for months before the first payment, a main contractor on 60-day terms who pays on time and won't change, or a payroll date this month that the ledger can't meet.
Common questions
Is invoice factoring faster than credit control? For getting cash, yes. Factoring can advance 80-90% of an invoice within about a day, while credit control brings cash in when the customer pays, sooner than it otherwise would.
How much does invoice factoring cost in the UK? Typically a service fee of 0.5% to 3% of invoice value plus a discount charge of 1.5% to 5% a year on money drawn, though every provider prices individually.
Does Adfin offer invoice factoring or cash advances? No. Adfin provides payments, chasing and reconciliation, priced per successful payment with no contract.
Will my customers know if I factor my invoices? With factoring, yes, because the provider collects from them. Invoice discounting is usually confidential.
What is recourse factoring? Under recourse, you repay the advance if a customer doesn't pay. Non-recourse moves that risk to the factor, usually at a higher price.
Can I use invoice discounting and automated credit control together? Yes, because discounting leaves collection with you. Check your finance agreement on where customers must pay before changing payment details.
Sources
- British Business Bank - Invoice finance (accurate as of September 2026) https://www.british-business-bank.co.uk/business-guidance/guidance-articles/finance/invoice-finance
- ICAEW Corporate Finance Faculty - Invoice finance and asset based lending, best-practice guideline 65 (accurate as of September 2026) https://www.icaew.com/-/media/corporate/files/technical/corporate-finance/guidelines/growth-through-asset-based-finance-guideline-65.ashx?la=en
- Funding Circle - Invoice factoring costs (accurate as of September 2026) https://www.fundingcircle.com/uk/resources/business-finance/invoice-factoring-costs/
- Adfin - Pricing (accurate as of September 2026) https://www.adfin.com/pricing
- Adfin - Credit control (accurate as of September 2026) https://www.adfin.com/credit-control
