Shedding those accounts receivable

January 08, 2009

What do you do if you’re a Gulf Coast business and you’re waiting a little longer these days to get paid by other businesses?

It can be a major challenge during a tight economy.

One answer is getting rid of those accounts receivables and getting your money faster so you can invest it in your business.

That’s the idea behind FTRANS Corp., an Atlanta company that works with banks so businesses can outsource their accounts receivables to FTRANS. The Gulf Coast is one of its largest and fastest-growing markets that drove a 300% jump in business for FTRANS in the past year.

The upshot is that instead of waiting up to 50 days to get paid, businesses get paid in four days or less.

“They get out of accounts administration and the bad debt business,” Jim Lester, vice president of marketing for FTRANS, tells Coffee Talk.

Of course, there is a fee for this, up to 2.5% of the value of the accounts receivable, but usually it is less.

FTRANS helps a variety of businesses, ranging from $1 million to $250 million in revenue. The “sweet spot” for clients is about $5 million to $35 million in revenue, Lester says.

The clients include those in manufacturing, wholesale trade, law firms, architects and landscape architects.TRANS has identified 90,000 business prospects in the Tampa Bay area alone. That represents a $14 billion lending opportunity. “Sheer numbers dictate why we’re there,” Lester says.