The Fastest Way Black Women-Owned B2Bs Get Paid on Invoices

How Black Women Entrepreneurs Selling to Other Businesses Boost Cash Flow and Working Capital by Getting Paid Immediately on Invoices.

If yours is a minority woman-owned Small business selling to other businesses (B2B) or government organizations (B2G), you probably conduct business by delivering your goods and services upfront. After which, you issue an invoice – or bill – to the customer to be paid within an agreed-upon timeframe. Typically, that payment process runs from between 30 days to 120 or so, depending on your client’s demands. For many small businesses, that long waiting period can be financially and logistically painful, especially with late-paying customers.

One of the smartest moves taken over the past couple of years by minority women business owners is increasing cash flow and working capital by changing how long it takes to get paid on customer invoices. Unpaid, slow-pay, and extended payment invoices can choke off the cash flow of your business and drain working capital reserves when you need them most. 

Finding a way to bring in liquid capital in a shaky economy quickly makes running your business easier, less costly, and more profitable than waiting thirty, sixty, or ninety days or longer to receive compensation for goods and services. Read further, and we’ll tell you how you can loosen the tight grip that unpaid invoices have on your cash flow so that you boost working capital without adding further debt to your balance sheet.

Complex Challenges and Obstacles Facing Black Women-Owned Small Businesses Today.

Minority-owned, woman-operated businesses that beat the already-stacked odds against small business start-up success to become stable deserve applause and community support. In the current economic climate, however, with its high inflation and evaporating availability of affordable capital, companies that Black women own have to remain creatively flexible and work extra hard to survive, thrive, and grow. 

While suffering the same woes as every other small business owner during post-pandemic economic uncertainty, Black women-owned operations are facing additional pressures because the economic turmoil has led to a severe tightening of business capital resources that were already elusive because of historically systemic injustice.

Although Black women are at least 6% of the United States population, systemic wealth inequality, underrepresentation, and historically frustrating cultural bias have resulted in only 2% business ownership. 

The number drops to a mere 0.5% for unmarried Black women, dwarfed by numbers enjoyed by single white males (24 times larger) who benefit from a more accessible, less-obstructed path to business.

Other factors that create more numerous and challenging obstacles to business success for Black women business owners include.

• Lack of access to small business start-up funding because rising skyrocketing interest rates on lending capital are destroying profit margins and making borrowing too expensive for companies already operating on narrow margins.
• Restricted issuance of business lines of credit is the new norm forcing entrepreneurs seeking working capital to put up more collateral, prove stronger creditworthiness, and pay higher interest rates and penalties.
• Predatory lenders and finance companies take advantage of unwary or desperate small businesses during hard financial times. These kinds of businesses lock entrepreneurs into expensive, tricky payment arrangements that leave small business owners at a serious disadvantage.

• Opportunistic, often fly-by-night firms prey on minority-owned businesses offering easy money attached to risky personal and business guarantees that can corner business owners and businesses in financial peril during a negative economic turn. These ‘Recourse’ lenders make profits by coming after your business, personal property, or both if payment problems arise.

In its 2022 report entitled, ‘Black Womenomics’ – Equalizing Entrepreneurship,’ Goldman Sachs estimates that 

“Reducing the earnings gap for Black women, which includes increasing business ownership to drive economic mobility, could raise the level of annual US GDP by 1.4-2.1% each year, or $350-525 Billion in current dollars.”

Getting Paid Immediately on Invoices Benefits Black Women-owned Businesses. Here’s Why.

Post-pandemic economic upheaval has thrown every major global economy into uncertainty. Internationally, financial news overwhelmingly points to a looming long-term recession that has already begun taking effect in some countries before heading into 2023. According to the prediction of Elon Musk, the current economic downturns and supply chain problems could last well into 2024.

Small businesses owned by Black women are a dynamic part of the modern economy and have had to make success happen even in a business environment with all of the following problems: 

• Inflationary price increases drive the cost of raw materials, supplies, inventory, equipment, and workspace real estate.
• Wage & benefit pressures from employees who may be shopping around for better pay and perks to compensate for rising prices affecting their family budget.
• Skyrocketing interest rates impact daily operating costs, rents, and lease payments. Of course, these increases must be passed along to your customer through higher prices, affecting competitiveness and customer loyalty.
• Supply chain disruptions negatively impact on-hand inventory and reliability of order delivery with any product tied to overseas shipping and delivery. Logistical nightmares that result negatively affect manufacturing and production equipment on-site when repairs require hard-to-get parts.

• Most small business owners are familiar with downturn cycles and how banks behave in response. Still, for minority-owned businesses, hard times historically mean.
• A higher risk of slow payment or non-payment from larger clients. The same risk happens more frequently among customers suffering slow business because of the economy.
• Loss of competitive advantage as more prominent companies with deeper pockets get the first pick of hard-to-get supplies and raw materials.
• Less cash flow and working capital are available to minority women-owned operations in an underserved business segment.

With so many issues crying for attention in today’s business environment, no Black women-owned small business can afford to have its cash flow stream slowed by accounts receivable invoices sitting around for weeks or months awaiting payment. No matter how trustworthy and reliable your client may be, an invoice is not as helpful to your business needs and goals as having cash in your bank account. The faster you turn that invoice into working capital that is ready to use, the better for your business.

• Getting paid immediately on customer accounts that you already do business with and to whom you’ve already provided extended payment terms relieves you of worrying about what will happen weeks or months later. Since you have the money available quickly, you can work on your business dreams and goals without delay.
• You remove the risk of slow payment or non-payment by collecting immediately on each invoice to that client. Quick transaction payments are similar to the perks enjoyed by retail business owners when they get paid by credit card in their shops and stores. They never have to worry about personally collecting money from slow-paying or non-paying customers, and neither should you.
• Because you don’t have to wait for money like many of your small business peers, you have access to the funds you’ll need to compete in a tight market. There is an advantage in knowing that you can bid for and acquire new business by comfortably offering extended payment terms to reliable new clients. You can do this gladly because their invoices are about the same as cash in the bank.

The Invoice Payment Solution that Empowers Black Women Entrepreneurs.

A new, patent-pending Accelerated Invoice Payment Technology by NowAccount helps empower Black Women-owned businesses by taking the brakes off your ability to collect compensation immediately from your business and government customers. We understand the challenges of slow-paying clients testing your trust, patience, and stress level after you’ve delivered your goods and services. 

Like you, we have found ourselves forced to watch 30-day, 60-day, and 90-day payment deadlines pass by on the calendar without receiving the money you have justly earned. We know the anxiety and worries that come with 30-day invoices paid an average of two months late.

We decided back then that we’d had enough and set out to build a financial network technology solution that allows you the flexibility to accept extended payment terms from clients while still getting paid immediately! Better, we found a way to do it without adding risk or negatively impacting your profit margins.

NowAccount Puts an End to Waiting 30, 60, or 90 Days to Get Paid. 

The NowAccount Accelerated Invoice Payment System makes your B2B and B2G business transactions a pleasure because it puts an end to long waits. Many NowAccount clients describe it as having the convenience of taking a credit card payment.

You can enjoy transacting as much business as your operation can handle because the waiting game is over. While other B2B and B2G companies wait with nervous patience, hoping clients will pay them weeks down the road, you’ll be confident that the invoices you issue can be converted immediately to cash in your business bank account.

NowAccount is Transparent With No Hidden Fees or Expenses.

Honesty, integrity, and transparency are the core values at NowAccount. You will never be penalized with hidden or disguised fees. Unlike so-called ‘invoice factoring companies,’ there is no ‘holding back’ your invoice’s face value. 

Invoice factoring and invoice loan companies might pay you only 50 to 80% upfront, with the rest coming weeks or months after your client pays. 

NowAccount pays you 100% minus a one-time, small fat fee starting as low as 3%, which is another reason it feels easy and convenient, like taking a credit card.

NowAccount is ‘Non-Recourse’ – No Personal Guarantee or Collateral Required.

To protect their balance sheets, banks and traditional lenders have made securing working capital extremely expensive and challenging to qualify for coming out of the pandemic. Loans and lines of credit are only possible to acquire after carefully detailed background and credit checks for the business applicant and the business itself. 

Most small business owners have a tough time raising money through banks, even in good times, let alone after a global pandemic that has shaken the entire financial world. Starting, stabilizing, and growing your own business sometimes requires financial flexibility and priority juggling to succeed. Often, a perfectly trustworthy entrepreneur can present a non-standard credit picture not perfectly fitted to new, hardline bank loan requirements. 

NowAccount takes the pressure off of you and focuses on your invoice client’s steady ability to pay rather than holding you or your company under a microscope. Qualifying is simple and easy to set up.

NowAccount Works Perfectly Alongside Existing Loans or Lines of Credit.

NowAccount is Off the Balance Sheet – Will Never be a Liability. Unlike bank loans or lines of credit, no debt accumulates on your books, nor any liability worries when you get paid immediately. Even better, NowAccount works perfectly alongside existing loans or lines of credit.

Getting paid quickly on invoices will not affect your banking relationships as it adds no negative impact to your balance sheet.

Furthermore, using our accelerated invoice payment system will not interfere with your future ability to apply for a small business loan or line of credit.

Using our accelerated invoice payment system will not interfere with your future ability to apply for a small business loan or line of credit. If you already have an existing loan – be it a traditional bank loan or an alternative financing resource, your NowAccount works without friction. 

Start Getting Paid Immediately with NowAccount in Four Simple Steps.

As a company, NowAccount understands what it’s like to have to fight the odds and overcompensate using your will, skill, and talent to overcome obstacles that were set down decades, if not centuries, before any of us were even born. With small businesses like yours in mind, we created a way for you to bypass slow payment obstacles and free up cash flow to build working capital. 

Our accelerated invoice payment system provides the financial flexibility that entrepreneurs like you need and money you can use for day-to-day operations and scale your business fearlessly. 

Get started today with NowAccount’s simple, easy, four-step process that protects your privacy, relieves stress, strengthens your financial position, adds no risk or liability, and frees you up to focus on the business areas you most enjoy.