For Stacey Horlings at 6S Transport Ltd., a Raymond Alberta based trucking company servicing clients in a wide variety of industries including oil and gas, the timing was right. “Factoring with Capital Now has been instrumental in my ability to efficiently grow my business,” said Stacey. “My husband and I started the business half a year ago and early stage growth capital is absolutely crucial to establishing our business in an industry that is very competitive.” 6S Transport already has 15 trucks in its fleet.
Creativity is required to address the many challenges faced in a challenging economic environment. A situation familiar for most service industry companies operating in the orbit of Western Canada’s oil and gas industry. Financing growth, meeting payroll, paying taxes, are difficult when operating in the trucking industry that as a whole has seen sharp reductions in revenue despite consistent tonnage hauled.
For 6S Transport, accounts receivable financing was the perfect solution that was provided to them by Calgary based Capital Now Inc. Accounts receivable financing (or sometimes referred to as factoring) is a type of asset-financing arrangement in which a company uses its receivables as collateral in a financing agreement. In this agreement, an accounts receivables financing firm (such as Capital Now Inc.), gives the original company an amount equal to a reduced value of the unpaid invoices or receivables.
“This type of financing helps companies free up capital that is stuck in unpaid obligations,” says Capital Now’s CEO Gerry Wawzonek. “Accounts receivable financing also transfers the default risk associated with the accounts receivables to the financing company.
For Horlings, it was an easy decision. “We realized the benefits of being able to have access to cash basically whenever we needed it; within a day or two,” she says. “That was a huge advantage for us to establish our brand as being first in safety and trustworthiness in the trucking industry.”
Making payroll has been a nettlesome problem for many companies in the last few years in Alberta. “That is a common problem that business owners come to us looking for help with,” says Mr. Wawzonek. “And I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been there to help our clients out that are in a pinch. We are in a relationship business and I stand by making and maintaining the strongest of relations with all my new and existing clientele.”
Factoring companies such as Capital Now take a lot of tension out of industry. “We deal on a very professional level and so our clientele really enjoy working with us given how flexible and understanding we are of their situation, comments. Wawzonek. “We are not nearly as dictated by procedure and policy like the big banks are which is a big help for us and our clients.”
Capital Now began operations in 2007 and since that time hasn’t looked back. Most recently, Gerry and his team opened up their first office in Austin, Texas. “We are now at close to twenty full-time employees and while it may be intuitive to think of our business as one that is counter-cyclical, in actual fact we are always primed for growth regardless if the economy is in an upswing or slump,” said Wawzonek. “As a company with operations in both the US and Canada we are very in tune with the culture of the province and abroad and we really do embrace the entrepreneurial frontier spirit that so many business owners embody out here and in Texas.”
Without Capital Now’s support entrepreneurs and business owners may be less ambitions to take on bigger projects, expand their business and hire more people; exactly what Alberta and BC’s energy industry needs right now. “Capital Now has enabled our business to stay on top of shorter term capital requirements,” said Horlings.
“We don’t’ have any setup fees associated with our service, we are hassle free, we don’t interfere with a client’s existing banking relationships,” said Wawzonek. “We are willing to be second in line after the banks in event of a liquidity event.”