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Trade credit is the loan extended by one trader to another when the goods and services are bought on credit. Trade credit facilitates the purchase of supplies without immediate payment. Trade credit is commonly used by business organizations as a source of short-term financing. It is granted to those customers who have a reasonable amount of financial standing and goodwill. [1] (Kuveya, 2020)
There are many forms of trade credit in common use. Various industries use various specialized forms. They all have, in common, the collaboration of businesses to make efficient use of capital to accomplish various business objectives.
Trade credit is the largest use of capital for a majority of business-to-business (B2B) sellers in the United States and is a critical source of capital for a majority of all businesses. [2] For example, Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world, has used trade credit as a larger source of capital than bank borrowings; trade credit for Wal-Mart is 8 times the amount of capital invested by shareholders. [3] [4]
Most small businesses rely on trade credit to finance their operational costs, with 40% of U.S. businesses using trade credit for B2B transactions. [5]
Open trade credit is the most common type, typically involving an invoice and a promissory note as primary documentation.
Repayment for trade credit is often done through equal installments, similar to standard loans or credit, with specific terms agreed upon.
Traditional revolving credit allows borrowers to access credit multiple times until reaching a predetermined credit limit. Payments replenish available credit, allowing for repeated use over multiple time periods.
Consignment credit involves one party (the consignee) selling goods provided by another party (the cosigner) at a lower cost. The consignee can profit from marking up the goods, while the cosigner benefits from the sale. Unsold goods can be returned within a specified timeframe. [6]
The operator of an ice cream stand may sign a franchising agreement, under which the distributor agrees to provide ice cream stock under the terms "net 60" with a ten percent discount on payment within 30 days, and a 20% discount on payment within 10 days. This means that the operator has 60 days to pay the invoice in full. If sales are good within the first week, the operator may be able to send a cheque for all or part of the invoice, and make an extra 20% on the ice cream sold. However, if sales are slow, leading to a month of low cash flow, then the operator may decide to pay within 30 days, obtaining a 10% discount, or use the money for another 30 days and pay the full invoice amount within 60 days.
If the ice cream distributor for its part were to receive trade credit from milk and sugar suppliers on terms of net 30 and 2% discount if paid within ten days, it would appear it were taking a loss or disadvantageous position in this web of trade credit balances. The ice cream distributor may be willing to do so if it has a substantial markup on the ingredients and other costs of production of the ice cream it sells to the operator, but there exists more than one reason to manage trade credit terms for the benefit of a business, and more than one way to do so. The ice cream distributor may be well-capitalized either from the owners' investment or from accumulated profits, and may be looking to expand his markets. They may be aggressive in attempting to locate new customers or to help them get established. It is not in their best interests for customers to go out of business from cash flow instabilities, so their financial terms aim to accomplish two things:
One alternative to straightforward trade credit is when a supplier offers to give product on consignment to a trader e.g. a gift shop. The terms of the arrangement mean that the original supplier retains ownership of the goods until the shop sells them. Trade credit has been identified as a critical source of short-term financing for listed manufacturing companies. A trade credit contract is a legally binding agreement between two parties that allows a buyer to purchase goods or services on account and pay the supplier at a later date [7]
Discounts and allowances are reductions to a basic price of goods or services.
Factoring is a financial transaction and a type of debtor finance in which a business sells its accounts receivable to a third party at a discount. A business will sometimes factor its receivable assets to meet its present and immediate cash needs. Forfaiting is a factoring arrangement used in international trade finance by exporters who wish to sell their receivables to a forfaiter. Factoring is commonly referred to as accounts receivable factoring, invoice factoring, and sometimes accounts receivable financing. Accounts receivable financing is a term more accurately used to describe a form of asset based lending against accounts receivable. The Commercial Finance Association is the leading trade association of the asset-based lending and factoring industries.
The list price, also known as the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP), or the recommended retail price (RRP), or the suggested retail price (SRP) of a product is the price at which its manufacturer notionally recommends that a retailer sell the product.
Accounts payable (AP) is money owed by a business to its suppliers shown as a liability on a company's balance sheet. It is distinct from notes payable liabilities, which are debts created by formal legal instrument documents. An accounts payable department's main responsibility is to process and review transactions between the company and its suppliers and to make sure that all outstanding invoices from their suppliers are approved, processed, and paid. The accounts payable process starts with collecting supply requirements from within the organization and seeking quotes from vendors for the items required. Once the deal is negotiated, purchase orders are prepared and sent. The goods delivered are inspected upon arrival and the invoice received is routed for approvals. Processing an invoice includes recording important data from the invoice and inputting it into the company's financial, or bookkeeping, system. After this is accomplished, the invoices must go through the company's respective business process in order to be paid.
Accounts receivable, abbreviated as AR or A/R, are legally enforceable claims for payment held by a business for goods supplied or services rendered that customers have ordered but not paid for. The accounts receivable process involves customer onboarding, invoicing, collections, deductions, exception management, and finally, cash posting after the payment is collected.
Vendor-managed inventory (VMI) is an inventory management practice in which a supplier of goods, usually the manufacturer, is responsible for optimizing the inventory held by a distributor.
An invoice, bill or tab is a commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer relating to a sale transaction and indicating the products, quantities, and agreed-upon prices for products or services the seller had provided the buyer.
Net 10, net 15, net 30 and net 60 are payment terms for trade credit, which specify that the net amount is expected to be paid in full by the buyer within 10, 15, 30 or 60 days of the date when the goods are dispatched or the service is completed. Net 30 or net 60 terms are often coupled with a credit for early payment.
Business-to-business is a situation where one business makes a commercial transaction with another. This typically occurs when:
A voucher is a bond of the redeemable transaction type which is worth a certain monetary value and which may be spent only for specific reasons or on specific goods. Examples include housing, travel, and food vouchers. The term voucher is also a synonym for receipt and is often used to refer to receipts used as evidence of, for example, the declaration that a service has been performed or that an expenditure has been made. Voucher is a tourist guide for using services with a guarantee of payment by the agency.
Debtor finance is a process to fund a business using its accounts receivable ledger as collateral. Generally, companies that have low working capital reserves can get into cash flow problems because invoices are paid on net 30 terms. Debtor finance solutions fund slow-paying invoices, which improves the cash flow of the company and puts it in a better position to pay operating expenses.
Consignment is a process whereby a person gives permission to another party to take care of their property and retains full ownership of the property until the item is sold to the final buyer. It is generally done during auctions, shipping, goods transfer, or putting something up for sale in a consignment store. The owner of the goods pays the third-party a portion of the sale for facilitating the sale. Consignors maintain the rights to their property until the item is sold or abandoned. Many consignment shops and online consignment platforms have a set time limit at which an item's availability for sale expires. Within the time of contract, reductions of the price are common to promote the sale of the item, but vary by the type of item sold.
An air waybill (AWB) or air consignment note is a receipt issued by an international airline for goods and an evidence of the contract of carriage. It is not a document of title to the goods. The air waybill is non-negotiable.
In bookkeeping, accounting, and financial accounting, net sales are operating revenues earned by a company for selling its products or rendering its services. Also referred to as revenue, they are reported directly on the income statement as Sales or Net sales.
In a supply chain, a vendor, supplier, provider or a seller, is an enterprise that contributes goods or services. Generally, a supply chain vendor manufactures inventory/stock items and sells them to the next link in the chain. Today, these terms refer to a supplier of any goods or service.
In finance, dynamic discounting describes a collection of methods in which payment terms can be established between a buyer and supplier to accelerate payment for goods or services in return for a reduced price or discount.
A consignment agreement is an agreement between a consignee and consignor for the storage, transfer, sale or resale and use of the commodity. The consignee may take goods from the consignment stock for use or resale subject to payment to the consignor agreeably to the terms bargained in the consignment agreement. The unsold goods will normally be returned by the consignee to the consignor.
Supply chain financing is a form of financial transaction wherein a third party facilitates an exchange by financing the supplier on the customer's behalf. The term also refers to practices used by banks and other financial institutions to manage capital invested into the supply chain and reduce risk for the parties involved.
There are many types of e-commerce models, based on market segmentation, that can be used to conducted business online. The 6 types of business models that can be used in e-commerce include: Business-to-Consumer (B2C), Consumer-to-Business (C2B), Business-to-Business (B2B), Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C), Business-to-Administration (B2A), and Consumer-to-Administration
The invoice price is the actual price that the end-customer retailer pays to the manufacturer or distributor for a product.
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