Small industrial companies can accelerate sales by anticipating receivables

Previously seen only as an instrument to relieve monthly bills and guarantee working capital for the business, the anticipation of receivables is now being seen by small industrialists who use the iCertus ERP, a fintech that uses data from its management software to grant low-interest loans as a sales acceleration tool.

Felipe Varejão, director of Sales and Customer Success at iCertus, explains that, although the anticipation of receivables is a financial and accounting act, 25% of the sales time is spent negotiating the term and payment amount. “From the moment our client anticipates a receipt from us, they accept the payment method that the buyer has available and save considerable time to sell more, without having to increase the number of sellers”, he points out.

Varejão also highlights that the advance fee charged by iCertus is much lower than the discount offered by the manufacturer for cash payment. “There are cases of customers where the discount is usually 12% to 15%, while the advance fee is much cheaper than that”, he explains.

According to the executive, this movement was generated by iCertus' own customers and provided a 300% growth in prepayments of receivables in 2021 and an increase of approximately 500% in the last quarter of last year.

Faced with this increase in demand for anticipation of receivables, Varejão says that iCertus will launch an application to offer financial education to customers demonstrating, for example, that this form of marketing using anticipation as a trigger to accelerate sales allows them to buy better , as it offers more cash availability to increase stocks and make small investments by having working capital in a much more efficient way with its own resources and in a completely unbureaucratic way.

How sales acceleration works

With the acceleration of iCertus sales, micro and small industries can anticipate these payments with a few clicks and in 30 minutes, with rates starting at 0,5% per month. Varejão gives a simple example of how anticipation can speed up sales. A company that makes 100 sales per month at an average ticket of R$5 has a monthly turnover of R$500. However, if only 10% of these sales are paid in cash and have an 8% discount, the cash flow will look like the following statement:

Varejão explains that by using the iCertus sales accelerator, the company can anticipate receiving the entire R$450 that it would receive in installments, at an interest rate starting at 0,5%, which guarantees a value net of R$ 443.216,19, while the rates charged by banks are around 5,19%, which corresponds to a value of R$ 376.235,72, that is, R$ 110.086,59 more than using the working capital loan from traditional banks, plus cash sales.

Another advantage pointed out by the iCertus Sales Director is the use of time spent negotiating deadlines and payment amounts for new sales. “As 25% of the time is spent just negotiating with the customer, by anticipating receipts the businessman can direct this attention to selling more, being able to approach 25% more customers, generate 25 more sales and earn R$650 thousand without having to increase the group of salespeople and receiving more than R$615 thousand, minus the advance fee”, he describes.

According to Varejão, the most interesting thing about this process is the collaborative structure created by iCertus customers themselves, involving the entire production chain. “We saw the case of a client increasing sales by ten, twelve, fifteen percent, and adding eight more suppliers, seven more service providers, going up in a scaled way because everyone goes up together. And they naturally end up recommending our software, because it is what actually helps them to accelerate sales”, he concludes.