Time Finance Invoice Finance Review (2026): Rates, Eligibility and Verdict

Time Finance Invoice Finance at a Glance

Our Verdict

Time Finance is the lender to shortlist if you want a named underwriter on the end of the phone rather than a self-serve portal, and especially if invoice finance is one slice of a wider funding picture that also touches kit, vehicles or a term loan. Human underwriting, regional teams who actually pick up, and the option to sit factoring or discounting alongside asset finance under a single facility are a genuine departure from the siloed approach most banks default to. The fit is sharpest for recruitment agencies funding weekly payroll against 60-day debtor terms, manufacturers paying suppliers up front while waiting on stage payments, and hauliers carrying fuel costs against ledger settlement that sits stubbornly at 45 days plus.

It is the wrong lender if you want an instant online decision or a published rate card to benchmark against three competitors before lunch. Pricing is bespoke and you will not get to a number without a conversation. Compared with fintech-led alternatives that quote indicatively in minutes, the process here will feel slower, and you should plan for it.

The strongest case for Time Finance is when invoice finance is part of a layered funding need: businesses that also need to fund equipment, support a restructure, or push through a growth phase that pulls on working capital and fixed assets at the same time. In that situation, the multi-product capability is not a nice-to-have. It changes the speed, the legal complexity, and how cleanly the facility comes together when one underwriter sees the whole picture rather than three lenders working from partial views.

Best For

• Recruitment agencies funding weekly or fortnightly payroll against 30 to 60-day client terms
• Manufacturers and engineering firms paying suppliers upfront while waiting on stage or milestone invoices
• Hauliers and logistics operators absorbing fuel and driver costs ahead of ledger settlement
• Construction sub-contractors invoicing on application and certified-payment terms (subject to sector underwriting)
• SMEs needing invoice finance bundled with asset finance or a business loan inside one facility
• Owners who want relationship-led underwriting and are willing to pick up the phone to get there
• Start-ups or shorter-trading businesses that can put a credible plan and clean banking on the table

Not Ideal For

• Businesses that need an instant online decision or indicative rates without a conversation
• Retailers, hospitality operators, e-commerce sellers, or anyone paid at the till or on card — invoice finance only works against credit-term B2B invoicing
• Businesses where one customer accounts for the majority of the ledger, without other mitigants such as a long contract or credit insurance
• Service businesses billing on milestone or staged terms with heavy disputes — ledger quality has to stand up to audit
• Owners who want to compare three published rate cards side by side before making any enquiry

Key Facts

What Is Time Finance Invoice Finance?

How Time Finance Invoice Finance Works

Time Finance plc (AIM: TIME) is a specialist SME lender headquartered in Bath. It was 1pm plc until December 2020, when the rebrand pulled its various lending arms under a single name. It now supports more than 10,000 SMEs a year, with a lending book that has pushed past £200m.

The mechanics are the standard ones. You raise an invoice on credit terms, submit it against the facility, and receive a cash advance — typically 80–90% of eligible invoice value — usually within 24 hours of upload. When your customer pays, the retained balance follows, less fees. Crucially, the facility scales with your debtor ledger rather than a fixed loan ceiling, which is why it suits growing B2B businesses better than a term loan if working capital is the real problem you are solving.

Time Finance is an own-book lender, which means it funds deals from its own balance sheet rather than placing them with a third party. Where a deal sits outside its appetite, it can refer you on — useful to know if you are approaching directly and want to avoid restarting the whole conversation elsewhere.

Factoring vs Invoice Discounting

Time Finance offers two flavours of invoice finance, and the choice between them comes down to a single practical question: who chases your customers for payment.

Factoring — Time Finance buys your unpaid B2B invoices and runs the collections process. Your customers pay Time Finance directly, so the arrangement is usually disclosed on the invoice. This suits businesses that either want to hand over credit control entirely or simply do not have the headcount to chase invoices properly. If your finance function is one part-time bookkeeper juggling Xero and the VAT return, factoring is often the realistic option, not the optional upgrade.

Invoice Discounting — You keep credit control in-house and your customer relationships unchanged. Time Finance advances funds against the ledger without your customers ever knowing a third party is involved. It is normally structured as a confidential facility, which is why more established businesses with proper credit control teams tend to prefer it. The trade-off is that the lender is relying on your collections discipline, so expect closer scrutiny of aged debt and dispute rates at the audit stage.

The mechanics under the bonnet are the same: a percentage of each eligible invoice is released upfront, the balance follows once your customer pays, and fees come off the top. The product that suits you turns on how much of the collections work you want to keep, and how disclosed you can afford the funding line to be.

Whole Ledger vs Selective Finance

Invoice finance facilities are typically structured as whole-ledger arrangements, where every eligible invoice flows through the facility by default. Some providers also offer selective or spot factoring, where you pick which invoices to fund — useful if cash pressure is concentrated around a single big customer or a particular project.

Time Finance does not publish details of selective options; its disclosed case studies and positioning point to a whole-ledger model. If selective or spot funding is genuinely a priority for you, raise it on the first call. The relationship-led underwriting approach means structure is part of the opening discussion rather than a locked menu choice further down the line.

Time Finance Invoice Finance Rates and Fees

Service Charge and Discount Rate

Invoice finance pricing everywhere is built from two components, and Time Finance is no different:

Service charge — A percentage of gross invoice value, taken when each invoice is raised against the facility. It covers administration and, in factoring, the collections work itself.

Discount charge — Interest on the cash you have actually drawn, usually quoted as a margin over a base rate and accruing daily on the outstanding balance. The headline rate is only ever half the picture.

Time Finance does not publish rate tables. Pricing is built around your ledger size, debtor spread, facility type and sector, and you have to go through the enquiry process to see indicative numbers in writing.

Additional Fees and Charges

Facilities at this level of the market routinely carry a longer list of charges than the headline service charge and discount rate suggest: arrangement fees, audit or due diligence fees (charged at inception or annually), minimum monthly usage fees, and notice-period or exit fees. Time Finance does not publish a fee schedule. Ask for a full breakdown of every chargeable item — not just the two headline numbers — at the indicative terms stage, before any credit work begins. If the lender will not put it on paper before underwriting, that is the signal to push harder, not to assume it will be fine.

What Affects Your Rate

The variables that move invoice finance pricing up or down are consistent across the market and apply to Time Finance:

• Ledger size — larger facilities typically attract better rates, simply because the fixed costs of running the facility are spread over more turnover
• Debtor quality — a spread of financially stable payers lowers perceived risk and tends to improve advance rates and service charge
• Debtor concentration — a ledger weighted heavily toward one customer carries real risk; expect this to bite into pricing or advance rates
• Sector — some industries are considered higher risk (construction, for example, because of contract disputes, retentions and insolvency cascading down the supply chain)
• Facility type — factoring typically carries a higher service charge than discounting, reflecting the actual collections work being performed
• Trading history — longer-established businesses with clean accounts and a tidy aged-debt profile tend to secure better terms

Time Finance Invoice Finance Eligibility

Who Can Apply

Time Finance applies human judgement to credit decisions rather than running everything through a scorecard. In practice that means context counts: a thin trading history is not an automatic decline if you can put a credible plan in front of someone who is actually empowered to weigh it. Both established SMEs and start-ups are considered.

The non-negotiable is that you invoice other businesses on credit terms. Invoice finance does not work for B2C trading or anything paid at point of sale — the ledger is the asset the facility is secured against, and a card-payment receipt is not a ledger. Your revenue must be B2B, invoiced, and subject to credit terms.

Minimum Turnover, Debtor Profile and Concentration Limits

Time Finance does not publish a minimum turnover threshold. Its disclosed deals span a wide range — a £1.8m facility for an industrial recruitment firm sits at the larger end, with smaller ledgers funded too. The underwriting approach suggests facility size alone is rarely the disqualifier; debtor quality and sector are the limiting factors that actually move decisions.

Debtor concentration is the one to watch. A ledger where one customer accounts for 50% or more of revenue gets underwritten very differently from one spread across twenty payers of similar size. Most lenders apply a soft cap somewhere between 25% and 40% per debtor, above which the advance rate on that debtor is haircut or capped in cash terms. High concentration does not automatically mean a decline, but it will be scrutinised, and you should expect either a reduced advance against the dominant customer or a request for additional comfort such as credit insurance. Worth modelling before you walk into the conversation, not after.

Sectors Accepted and Excluded

Time Finance’s published case studies and stated positioning cover recruitment, manufacturing, engineering, construction, haulage, and professional services — the B2B sectors where the gap between paying out and getting paid is most painful and most predictable.

Invoice finance does not work for B2C businesses, retail, hospitality, or any trade where customers pay at the till or on card. Some lenders also apply restrictions in sectors with high credit risk in the debtor chain, such as construction, where contract disputes, retentions and contra-charges can leave the lender chasing money that turns out not to be cleanly owed. Time Finance does not publish a formal exclusion list, so confirm sector eligibility on the first enquiry call.

Time Finance Invoice Finance Application Process

How to Apply

You can approach Time Finance directly through one of its regional teams — Bath, Birchwood, Manchester, Reading — or via a broker. Both routes hit the same underwriting desk. There is no online application portal; the process begins with a conversation, and the conversation is the point.

The first call is about shaping the facility before formal credit work begins: ledger size, debtor profile, factoring or discounting, whether anything else needs bundling in such as asset finance or a business loan. This scoping stage is where the relationship-led model is most visible — you are talking to someone who can actually shape the deal, not a sales coordinator passing a form along the chain.

Documents and Checks Needed

Standard requirements across the invoice finance market apply: recent management accounts or filed accounts, aged debtor listings, bank statements (typically three to six months), and company registration details. Established businesses with a clean trading history move through this stage quickly.

Start-ups and shorter-trading businesses should expect additional requests: a business plan and projected debtor profile alongside the bank statements. The conversational approach means there is more room to explain the shape of the business than a purely automated funnel allows — but the same underlying commercial questions get asked. A patchy aged-debtor report or unexplained drawings on the bank statements will surface either way; the difference is you get to address them in dialogue rather than in a rejection email.

Approval, Onboarding and First Draw

Because Time Finance lends off its own book, credit decisions stay in-house rather than being passed to a third-party funder for sign-off. That removes one approval layer and tends to make the process faster than panel-based lenders once the document pack is complete.

After credit approval, onboarding involves legal documentation and a ledger audit before the first draw. Expect a debenture and personal guarantees as standard at this level of the market. Timelines are not published; the Trustpilot record points to swift responses as a consistent feature of the service, which suggests a commercially motivated underwriting pace rather than a backlogged queue.

Time Finance Invoice Finance Facility Terms and Risk

Advance Rates and Funding Limits

Advances typically cover 80–90% of eligible invoice value. The retained 10–20% is released once your customer settles, less fees. The exact advance rate depends on ledger composition, debtor quality and sector — a clean spread of blue-chip payers attracts a higher rate than a ledger weighted toward one high-risk customer in a sector the underwriter has seen go wrong before.

Invoice finance is sized off the debtor ledger, not a fixed loan ceiling, so the available funding grows in line with sales. This is one of the genuine advantages over term debt for scaling B2B businesses: the facility self-calibrates as the business grows, rather than forcing you back into refinancing conversations every time turnover steps up.

Bad Debt Protection and Recourse Options

Standard invoice finance is written on a recourse basis: if your customer does not pay, the advance must be repaid by you. Non-recourse or bad debt protection (BDP) options are available at most providers, covering the risk of customer insolvency, and they carry an additional fee that is usually worth modelling against your own bad-debt history.

Time Finance does not publish details of its BDP options. Confirm whether non-recourse terms are available for your sector and debtor profile during the enquiry stage. For sectors like construction or recruitment, where customer insolvency is a live and recurring risk rather than a tail event, non-recourse cover is one of the terms to nail down properly before signing. The cost of the cover is almost always smaller than the cost of being on the hook for a failed main contractor.

Contract Length and Exit Costs

Invoice finance facilities typically run on rolling annual contracts with a notice period on termination — commonly 90 days, though terms vary. Exiting early or outside notice can trigger break fees that are eye-watering relative to the original arrangement fee. Time Finance does not publish contract terms or exit cost structures.

Ask for the minimum term, notice period, and any early termination charges at the indicative terms stage and get the answer in writing. For businesses anywhere near a potential M&A event, a refinance, or a structural change in shareholders, exit flexibility is worth understanding clearly before committing — the cheapest facility on day one can become the most expensive on day 600 if the exit terms are punitive.

Time Finance Invoice Finance Customer Reviews

What Customers Like

Time Finance has 193 reviews on Trustpilot at the time of writing. Recurring themes in the positive reviews are quick response times from named relationship managers and a straightforward feel through application and drawdown. On a separate aggregator, the lender holds a 4.8 out of 5 usefulness score across 135 reviews — a signal that borrowers find the product practically useful, not just the service polite.

The pattern lines up with the proposition Time Finance actually describes: a relationship-led lender where a specific person picks up the phone and moves the process forward. Read the review volumes in context — commercial lenders at this level of the market generate far fewer reviews than consumer fintechs, so 193 is a meaningful rather than thin sample.

Common Complaints

Negative reviews are limited in volume. The Trustpilot record does not surface a recurring complaint theme at the time of writing. Given the bespoke, conversation-led model, the most predictable friction points for any invoice finance provider at this level are: delayed credit decisions when document packs arrive incomplete, pricing that only becomes clear late in the process, and contract exit terms that prove more restrictive than expected once you try to leave. These are structural features of the market, not Time Finance-specific failures — but they are exactly the areas worth probing during enquiry rather than discovering at year two.

Time Finance Support and Regulation

Customer Support

Time Finance operates through direct regional teams in Bath, Birchwood, Manchester, and Reading, supported by a broker network. The relationship-led model means you have a named account manager from the outset rather than a shared inbox or a rotating support queue. Trustpilot reviewers consistently cite swift responses from named individuals as a positive feature, which lines up with how the proposition is built rather than reading as marketing varnish.

There is no self-serve portal or 24/7 digital support channel cited in Time Finance’s materials — the product is built around direct human contact. For businesses that want a clean digital interface to check balances and submit invoices through, confirm the platform capabilities during the onboarding stage before you assume parity with the fintech-built alternatives.

Regulatory Status and Complaints

B2B invoice finance is largely unregulated in the UK — that is standard across the industry, not specific to Time Finance. Two entities within the Time Finance group are FCA-registered: Time Loan Finance Limited (FRN 710117) and Time Vendor Finance Limited (FRN 628891), covering other products in the group’s range.

Because invoice finance falls outside FCA regulation, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) does not apply to invoice finance disputes. The UK Finance Asset Based Finance Association (ABFA), now part of UK Finance, provides a voluntary code of conduct for the invoice finance industry. If a dispute arises, check whether Time Finance is a member of UK Finance’s ABL/invoice finance division and what escalation routes are available under that code — it is the closest thing to a backstop the sector offers.

Time Finance vs Alternatives

Time Finance vs Bibby Financial Services

Bibby Financial Services is one of the largest independent invoice finance providers in the UK by volume, with a broad sectoral reach and a well-established broker network. Both Bibby and Time Finance target the SME market and offer factoring and invoice discounting; neither publishes rate tables.

The key difference is breadth versus bundling. Bibby is a specialist invoice finance business — deep in one product, with a large client book and the pricing leverage that comes with volume. Time Finance’s edge is the ability to sit invoice finance inside a multi-product facility alongside asset finance or a business loan under one relationship. If invoice finance is genuinely your only requirement, Bibby’s volume and market depth may produce competitive terms. If you need cross-product structuring, Time Finance has an architectural advantage Bibby cannot easily match without referring you out.

Time Finance vs Close Brothers Invoice Finance

Close Brothers is a specialist banking group with a long-established invoice finance arm. Like Time Finance, it focuses on the SME market, operates through relationship managers rather than portals, and does not publish rate cards. Both are own-book lenders.

Close Brothers tends to position toward established businesses with clean ledgers and a trading track record that reads cleanly on paper. Time Finance’s stated willingness to consider start-ups and its multi-product capability make it the more flexible option for businesses in earlier growth stages or with more complex balance sheet requirements. For mature businesses with straightforward invoice finance needs and a long, tidy aged-debtor report, both are credible options worth including in any shortlist.

Final Verdict: Is Time Finance Invoice Finance Worth It?

Time Finance is a serious option for any UK B2B business that wants a lender rather than a platform. The multi-product facility — invoice finance combined with asset finance or a business loan, one relationship, one set of covenants — is the clearest differentiator at this level of the market. Recruitment, manufacturing, construction, engineering, haulage and professional services businesses are the natural fit, particularly where payroll or supplier costs consistently run ahead of customer settlement and the working-capital gap is the chronic problem rather than a quarterly wobble.

The trade-off is transparency. Rates are bespoke, contract terms are not published, and you will not get to a number without a conversation. That is normal for the invoice finance market, but it means you cannot benchmark Time Finance against three competitors in an afternoon — you have to run the enquiry process to get comparable terms in writing. Budget for that time, and use a broker if you want to run multiple conversations in parallel without burning your own week on it.

For businesses with a single funding need and a preference for digital-first, instant-decision lenders, there are faster alternatives. For businesses with layered funding requirements, a preference for human relationships, and a willingness to invest the time the enquiry process actually takes, Time Finance is one of the more coherent providers in the UK SME market.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Time Finance invoice finance regulated by the FCA?

B2B invoice finance is largely unregulated in the UK — that is true across the industry, not specific to Time Finance. Two entities within the group are FCA-registered: Time Loan Finance Limited (FRN 710117) and Time Vendor Finance Limited (FRN 628891), covering other products in the group’s range. Because invoice finance falls outside FCA remit, the Financial Ombudsman Service does not apply to invoice finance disputes.

Can a start-up apply for invoice finance with Time Finance?

Yes. Time Finance considers start-ups alongside established businesses. Newer applicants should provide a business plan and bank statements on top of the standard credit checks. The conversational underwriting model gives you more room to make your case than a purely algorithmic lender — context counts, and a thin trading history is not an automatic decline if the plan stands up to scrutiny.

What is the difference between factoring and invoice discounting?

With factoring, Time Finance runs collections and your customers pay the lender directly, so the arrangement is normally disclosed. With invoice discounting, you keep credit control and your customers pay you as usual; the lender stays confidential. Discounting suits businesses with a working credit control function; factoring suits those that want collections handled externally or simply do not have the headcount to chase invoices properly.

Can I combine invoice finance with asset finance at Time Finance?

Yes — this is a defining feature of the proposition. Time Finance can structure invoice finance and asset finance (or a business loan) inside a single multi-product facility, managed through one relationship manager and one set of covenants. That is unusual at this level of the market and genuinely useful for businesses with multiple funding lines running simultaneously rather than separate negotiations across separate lenders.

Does Time Finance publish its invoice finance rates?

No. Pricing is bespoke and built around ledger size, debtor quality, sector and facility type. That is standard across the invoice finance market — published rate cards are rare at this level. You will need to go through the enquiry process to see indicative terms. Ask for a full breakdown of every chargeable item, not just the headline service charge and discount rate, before credit work begins.

What advance rate does Time Finance offer on invoices?

Advances typically cover 80–90% of eligible invoice value, in line with market norms. The exact rate depends on ledger composition, debtor quality and sector. A clean spread of financially stable customers tends to attract a higher advance rate than a ledger concentrated in one or two higher-risk payers.

Which sectors does Time Finance serve?

Time Finance’s published case studies and stated positioning cover recruitment, manufacturing, engineering, construction, haulage, and professional services. These are the B2B sectors where invoice-timing mismatches bite hardest. If your sector is not listed here, confirm eligibility directly — the relationship-led model means sector appetite is discussed rather than filtered by an automated eligibility check.

When did Time Finance rebrand from 1pm plc?

Time Finance plc rebranded from 1pm plc in December 2020, bringing its invoice finance, asset finance and business loan operations under a single name. It is listed on AIM under the ticker TIME and operates from its Bath headquarters with regional offices in Birchwood, Manchester, and Reading.