Factoring ve Türkiye uygulaması

Abstract

Her türlü mal ve hizmet satışından kaynaklanan vadeli ticari alacakların factor adı verilen finans kurumuna temlik yolu ile devredilmesi karşılığı, bu kurumdan, alacak, takip, tahsilat, muhasebe ve ön ödeme şeklindeki finansman hizmetlerinden yararlanılması olarak tanımlanan factoring, 19. yy da A.B.D. ' de ilk önceleri tekstil sektöründe uygulanmaya başlanmış, Avrupa ' da son 50 yıl, içinde yaygın bir uygulama alanı bulmuştur. Özellikle bilgisayarların iş hayatına girmesi ile hızla yaygınlaşan factoring, çok değişik sektörlerde kullanılabilir modern bir finansal teknik haline gelmiştir. Ancak factoring, yalnızca bir finansal teknik olmayıp aynı zamanda yönetsel bir hizmettir. Bu bağlamda factoring işlemi, bir işletmenin pasif varlıklarının, ticari büyümenin aktif bir aracına dönüştürülmesi işlemidir. Bilindiği gibi ekonominin temel problemi, eldeki kıt kaynakların alternatif dağılımını sağlamaktır. Bu noktada factoring, kıt kaynakların idaresinde önemli bir araçtır. Türkiye ' de 80 ' li yılların sonlarına doğru öncelikle ihracat işlemlerinde uygulanmaya başlanan factoring, daha sonraları hızla yurt içi işlemlerde de yaygınlaşmıştır. Sektör son derece genç olmasına karşın, gerçekleştirilen işlem hacmi küçümsenmeyecek düzeydedir. Gecikmeli de olsa ülkemizde birçok avantajları bulunan böyle bir tekniğin kullanılmaya başlanması oldukça anlamlı ve olumlu bir adımdır.

Factoring is a modern finance technique that is used all over the world. We can define this technique as follows ; The purchase of account receivables for the purpose of providing finance, relieving the seller from administrative tasks, from bad debts and for any two or all of such purposes. Firms sell their account receivables to a factor. The factor is a financial firm that specializes in this business. Briefly the factor provides the client these services ; ? Purchases all accounts receivable for immediate cash. ? Maintains the ledgers and performs other book-keeping duties relating to such accounts receivable. ? Collects the accounts receivable. ? Assumes the losses which may arise from the customer ' s financial inability to pay ( credit losses ) In particular arrangements have sometimes been made for factor to purchase the goods themselves from his client, the supplier, to pay immediate cash for them and to effect a sub-sale of the goods to the customer through the agency of his client. In this way the client receives immediate funds for the sale of goods and is relieved from the need to provide the credit terms which his customer requires ; if the arrangement is disclosed, the factor may carry out the administrative functions and collect direct and, if the client does not guarantee payment by the customer, the client is protected against bad debts. In practice the agency was normally undisclosed and the client collected on behalf of the factor and guaranteed payment the object of the arrangement was to provide funds only. When the agreement between the factor and his client has been executed the factor and the client are ready to start the arrangement, first it is necessary for the two parties to prepare the details on the clients sales ledger at the prospective starting date to be entered in to the factor ' s records. The factor must make a review of the debtors currently served by the client in order to assess their credit standing and to determine the level of his approvals. The approvals are usually based on a credit limit for each debtor and, in respect of debts at any time within that limit, the factor will have no recourse if the debtor fails to pay by reason of his insolvency. From the start of factoring the client will invoice his customer in the usual way but the invoices are to bear a notice that the debts represented by them have been purchased by and assigned to payable only to the factor. It is considered that the notice should refer to the ' purchase ' by the factor in order to make it clear that the debt has been the subject of an outright assignment by way of sale and purchase ; in the words of a well-known judgement the debtor should be made aware that the debt has been ' made-over ' to the factor. The amounts of the invoices are debited to the particular debtors' accounts by the factor and the client is credited. If the customer requires pre-payment, factor can credit him up to 80 % of the invoice value. Then the factoring company collect payment on the invoices on due date. The factor performs three functions ; Management of account receivables : Factor gives a payment guarantee incase of debtor insolvency. Management of collection : Factors maintains the ledger performs other book keeping duties relating to accounts receivable and collects them for their customers. In this way firm administrators may have longer time for marketing and for production. VII Management of cash-flow : Firms can get up to 80 % of approval accounts of receivable from the factor. In this way firms' balance sheet gets better. Their marketing finance and competition power increase. Main variations of factoring ; Domestic factoring : It is based on three side agreement ; supplier, factor, customer. The main principle is having fixed term selling. It works as follows ; ? Prospective customer gives his clients list to the factor. ? Factor examines them and informs his working conditions and pricing methods. ? Factor and customer sign the factoring agreement. ? Customer sends goods to debtor. ? Factor purchases the debts ? Customer gets the pre-payment ? Factor collects the payment on due date from the debtor International factoring : Works on correspondent system. It has four sides ; supplier, export factor, import factor, customer. It works as follows ; ? Importer signs the agreement with exporter and gives the order. ? Exporter gives the details about the importer to export factor. ? Export factor sends these informations to import factor and requires a credit line. ? If import factor approves the line, it will inform export factor. ? Supplier sends goods and invoices to his customer and gives one copy to export factor ? If supplier requires a pre-payment, export factor will pay this amount. ? Export factor sends an invoice to import factor VII ? import factor demands the payment from importer on due date. ? Import factor sends this payment to export factor Full service factoring : Provides the client ; pre-payment, maintains the ledger and performs other book-keeping duties, collects the account receivable, gives the payment guarantee. Recourse factoring : Normally describes the service by which the factor provides finance for the client and carries out the functions of sales ledger administration and collections, but does not protect the client against bad debts. Agency factoring : This variant of the service is sometimes referred to as ' bulk factoring ' but as virtually all factoring relates to the whole of a client ' s sales with the submission to the factor of batches or schedules of debts in bulk, the term ' bulj< ' could be applied to all forms. This form of factoring is further removed from the full service in that the factor, although requiring disclosure to the debtors, takes no responsibility for the administration or collection of the debts and the factoring is fully on a recource basis. This system is used where the client's pattern of trade consists of a large number of small debtor accounts but where he does not meet the standards of financial standing or administration required for consideration of an invoice discounting arrangement. Invoice discounting factoring : For those clients who need finance for the trade credit requirement of their debtors but no administrative service or protection, another service is provided extensively by factors. By the simple expedient of releasing the client from the need to notify the debtor to pay direct to the factor and by providing that all debts sold to the factor should be subject to full recourse, factoring is changed to a purely financial services sometimes referred to as ' confidental factoring ' or more commonly, ' invoice discounting '. IX Undisclosed factoring : The term ' undisclosed factoring ' is sometimes applied to an invoice discounting arrangement as described above ; but it is usually taken to denote and arrangement for invoice discounting whereby the factor will provide protection against bad debts to a limited extent by specifying that an agreed percentage ( normally 80 % ) of any approved indebtedness shall be without recourse as regards credit risks.The arrangement limits the protection to such a percentage so that the client, who maintains the ledger and collect from debtors, has some incentive to carry out these duties with efficiency. Maturity factoring : Where finance is not required, an arrangement, used increasingly by small businesses as an alternative to credit insurance, comprises full administration of the sales ledger, collection from debtors and protection against bad debts. This service, often called ' maturity factoring ', is provided without any financial facility. Co-operation between factors and bankers : It may sometimes be agreed between a bank and its customer that the customer should continue to use the bank's facilities for the financing of its trade debts whilst taking advantage of a factor ' s services. In such a case the bank ' s security may be inproved by the factoring arrangements and the bank ' s reliance on the administration and the monitoring of the debts by the factor combined with certain undertakings from him. The advantage to the bank 's customer ( the factor 's clients ) will be that he will keep his full relationship with his banker and, owing to the bank ' s improved security,may obtain a better facility. Advantages and disadvantages of factoring system : Advantages ; ? The use of factoring avoids bad debts ? Finding new markets and increased sales possibilities ? Sales ledger administration and collection ? Lower administration cost and more time for core activities ? Providing finance opportunities in an easy way ? Consistent cash flow Disadvantages ; ? Firms costs may rise, cause of factoring commision ? Firms may lose some of their clients in the market The cost of a factoring arrangement. includes commision charge and pre payment interest. Factoring commision is fixed and expressed as a percentage of total factored sales. It is normally between 1 % and 2.5 %. More than 100.000 businesses are currently using factoring to settle trade transactions with some seven million customers worldwide. Above mentioned advantages are especially important for the small and medium-sized businesses. This flexible method of managing trade debts enables companies to obtain cash for their domestic and international account receivables by selling them to a factor. The factors provide professional assistance with regard to credit control, collection and sales accounting. One obstacle is the increasing insistence of importers on open account terms whereby payment occurs only weeks or months after the actual delivery of the merchandise. Reliance on supplier credit, once restricted to domectic trade,. is also rapidly becoming a standard practice in international trade and often causes cash flow problems for the exporter. Fortunately, international factoring can provide solutions to such problems with a minimum of red-tape, regardless of whether the exporter is a small company or a major corporate entity. Factors assist exporters in collecting trade receivables from abroad by approaching buyers in their own country, in their own language, and in a locally accepted manner. Distances and other cultural problems then cease to be a problem. XI More over, factors can provide exporters with 100 % protection against customer defaults. International traders have not failed to note the unique combination of service elements in the export factoring contract, and the factoring ' package ' is regularly being chosen as an excellent alternative to other forms of trade financing and / or export credit insurance. Indeed, factoring should no longer be over looked by any company seeking a comprehensive export credit policy. As export factoring gains acceptance in the market, the role of the traditional letter of credit in international trade is gradually diminishing. That too reinforces the favorable prospects for international factoring, not only in the highly industrialized countries, but also in developing lands where many factoring companies have opened their doors in recent years. The real challenge for the factoring companies of the future will be maintaining their flexibility in order to react quickly to changing market circumstances. In our country, factoring is a very new financial instrument. When firms trust the factoring sector and get informed as how usefull for their work process is, it will be the most prefered financial technique. Factoring provides growth of the export volume, gets more working capital, finding new markets and new clients for the firms. As the factoring industry grows, our domestic and international trade will get better and our economy will grow.