Two longtime RTS Financial clients recently talked with us about how their companies have benefited from factoring. These are their stories:
Kevin M. - Missouri Trucking Company
Trucking dispatcher Kevin M. started his over-the-road company 13 years ago in western Missouri. He began with four trucks and quickly realized he needed more cash flow to keep up with customer demand. He needed factoring to help his company grow. “Factoring gave my company growth capital that it didn’t have,” he said. Kevin chose RTS Financial as his factor because the advance rates were competitive and he liked that the company was based in nearby Lenexa, Kansas. He soon learned there were other advantages to factoring beyond steady cash flow. Having a third-party company as his collections partner meant one less full-time employee Kevin needed to hire. RTS Financial kept close track of his customers’ payment patterns and would alert him if something looked unusual. “RTS Financial would call me and say, ‘Kevin, this guy you are hauling loads for is not paying you. He’s giving us the run-around.’ That made a big difference in helping us avoid payment defaults,” he said. Kevin also valued RTS Financial’s credit rating system with data on more than 50,000 brokers and shippers. He frequently uses it to assess his new and existing customers. “Most freight brokers are aware of RTS Financial’s rating network and most of them know it’s a tough grade,” he said. “But in my opinion, it has really helped me evaluate my customers.” Kevin’s trucking business has grown to more than 80 employees. Last year, he and a business partner started an intermodal transportation company that is rapidly growing. The two companies combined operate 65 trucks primarily in the Midwest and West. Factoring with a trusted, long-term partner has been key to the expansion of Kevin’s trucking and intermodal businesses. “There’s no way we could have done it without factoring,” he said. “We would be running 15 or 20 trucks today without it.”
Kaspar - California Trucking Company
Kaspar is an accounting manager for a trucking company in California that specializes in dry goods hauling in the 48 mainland states. Since opening its doors in 2007, the company has been an RTS Financial client. Factoring provides same-day payment on receivables, so Kaspar’s trucking company does not rely on waiting 30 to 60 days for customer payments. The advances help in terms of running the business and meeting payroll. Another valuable resource for Kaspar’s company is having RTS Financial collect from customers. “Otherwise, we would have to hire more employees to do the accounts receivable and accounts payable functions,” he said. Kaspar’s company recently explored taking on those functions in-house and hiring at least one more employee to handle collections. Ultimately, the company’s owners decided it was better to stick with the competitive advance rates, credit analysis, and back office services of a factoring company. Kaspar said the customer service at RTS Financial has been a key reason his company has remained a client for more than seven years. “We love the availability,” he said. “We can’t afford to wait several days for a company’s credit to be evaluated. With RTS Financial, that evaluation happens almost instantly.”