Finance for wholesale and trade businesses
You’re funding both ends of the cycle at once, paying suppliers before you’re paid by customers. The right structure covers the whole gap, not just one side of it.
Wholesale and distribution businesses sit in the middle of a cash cycle they don’t fully control: paying suppliers on one side, carrying trade credit for retailers or customers on the other. Trade finance and invoice finance are built for exactly this shape of business, and the two products cover different halves of the same gap.
Why trade facilities are about peace of mind, not just borrowing
Having a trade facility set up gives you the confidence that you can get the stock you need, when you need it, without waiting on a fresh application every time an order comes in. The genuinely useful part is that you don’t have to draw on it if you don’t need to. It sits there as capacity, not a debt you’re carrying by default. See our trade finance page for how the facility itself works.
Funding both ends of your cash cycle
Depending on who you sell to, it can make sense to package invoice finance and trade finance together, one covering what you owe suppliers, the other covering what your customers owe you. Structured correctly, these facilities effectively wash themselves: money coming in from collected invoices funds the next round of stock, and the business gets the confidence that whatever comes up, on either side of the transaction, it can be funded.
- 01Trade finance covers the gap between paying your supplier and receiving the stock, typically domestic purchases from another Australian supplier, sometimes overseas.
- 02Invoice finance covers the gap on the other side, advancing against what your own customers owe you once you’ve supplied them, often up to 90% of the invoice.
- 03Used together and structured correctly, the two facilities can effectively self-fund: collections on one side pay down the other, without the business carrying the full cash gap itself.
Trade finance or invoice finance alone
If only one side of your cycle is genuinely tight, whether that’s paying suppliers upfront or waiting on customer payment, a single facility matched to that gap is usually the simpler and cheaper structure.
Trade finance and invoice finance combined
If you’re funding stock purchases and carrying customer terms at the same time, packaging both facilities together, structured so collections on one side support the other, is what actually removes the cash pressure.
A trade facility sitting unused costs you nothing beyond having it. The value is knowing it’s there the moment an order comes in, not being forced to draw on it every month.
Why work with a broker instead of comparing lenders yourself?
Structuring trade and invoice finance to genuinely wash themselves takes more than picking two products off the shelf, the facility limits, timing and lender pairing all matter. A broker who’s placed this combination before can set it up so it actually reduces your cash pressure, not just shifts it. (More on how a business loan broker actually works.)
When a single facility is enough
Not every wholesale or distribution business needs both facilities running at once. If your supplier terms are already generous, or your customer base pays quickly and reliably, adding a second facility just to have it can cost more than it solves. Worth being honest about which side of the cycle is actually under pressure before you commit to a combined structure.
Funding one side of the cycle, or both?
Tell us how your supplier and customer terms actually work and we’ll tell you honestly whether one facility covers it, or whether combining trade and invoice finance is worth structuring properly.
Give us the basics below and Andrew will come back with the two or three offers actually worth your time, usually within a business day.