Invoice finance for Wellington small businesses
1. Lede
Invoice finance gives a Wellington small business access to cash from work already invoiced, without waiting 30, 60, or 90 days for the customer's accounts payable cycle to clear. The business selects a single unpaid invoice, connects accounting software, and receives funds the same business day. Wellington's economic base is weighted toward government services, ICT, professional services, and construction. Across these sectors, contractual payment terms are stable but slow, which produces predictable cash flow timing gaps for the small operators supplying into them.
2. How invoice finance works
The model is three steps, documented in detail at the connect-select-receive workflow:
- Connect. The business connects its accounting platform (Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks, or Reckon) to a read-only feed of unpaid invoices.
- Select. The business chooses the specific invoice it wants funded. Selective by design: there is no obligation to fund the next invoice or the ledger as a whole.
- Receive. Funds settle into the business's nominated bank account the same business day, provided the request is in before the daily cut-off window.
This is the on-demand invoice finance model: per-invoice, per-decision, no facility minimums, no whole-of-ledger commitment.
3. The Wellington industry context
Wellington concentrates four sectors where the cash flow timing gap is a structural feature of operating:
- Suppliers to central government. ICT contractors, consultants, training providers, research firms, and professional services suppliers billing government departments and Crown entities on 30 to 60 day terms. The terms are reliable; the settlement timing is not always fast enough for the operator's payroll and supplier cycle.
- ICT and digital services. Wellington's significant software development, cyber, and digital services cluster. Operators billing project milestones or monthly retainers to government and private sector clients, often with one or two large clients dominating the receivables book.
- Professional services. Legal, accounting, policy consulting, and engineering firms billing corporate and government clients on 20th-of-the-month or 30 to 60 day terms.
- Construction subcontractors. Tier-2 and Tier-3 subcontractors invoicing head contractors across Wellington's commercial and public-sector construction pipeline. Standard terms run 45 to 90 days, with retention clauses tightening realised cash inflows further.
The shape is consistent across these segments: revenue is recognised, the work is signed off, the invoice is in the customer's accounts payable, and the operator's bank balance does not yet reflect any of it.
4. The cash flow timing gap in Wellington B2B
The cash flow timing gap is the interval between recognising revenue (issuing the invoice) and the customer's funds clearing the bank account. In New Zealand B2B contracts, the "20th of the month following" payment convention is widespread, meaning an invoice issued early in the month may not settle for 45 to 50 days. Government and Crown entity contracts typically settle reliably but on terms of 30 to 60 days from invoice acceptance.
A profitable Wellington operator can run out of cash entirely from timing, not trading. That is the distinction invoice finance is built around: the underlying revenue is real, the customer is good for it, and the only missing variable is settlement timing.
5. Eligibility and funding readiness
Not every business is suited to invoice finance. Funding readiness sets out the criteria, summarised here for Wellington operators:
- The business invoices other businesses or government entities (B2B or B2G), not consumers.
- The work has been completed and accepted; the invoice is not in dispute.
- The customer (the debtor) is a credible payer with a track record of settling invoices. Government departments and Crown entities are typically high-quality debtors for this purpose.
- The business uses accounting software that supports an integration (Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks, or Reckon).
- The cash shortfall is timing-driven, not structural. A business operating at a sustained loss is not a candidate for invoice finance.
Operators outside these criteria are usually pointed toward different instruments. The comparison pages at /compare/invoice-finance-vs-business-loan and /compare/invoice-finance-vs-overdraft cover when each option fits.
6. What sets FundTap apart for Wellington businesses
- Same business day funding. Requests submitted before the same-day funding window cut-off settle that day, not the next week.
- Native accounting integrations. Xero (founded in Wellington and the dominant SME platform locally), MYOB, QuickBooks, and Reckon all connect directly; no manual invoice uploads, no spreadsheet reconciliation.
- No new debt on the balance sheet. Invoice finance is the sale of a specific receivable, not a loan secured against the business.
- No lock-in contracts. Use it once, use it monthly, or stop entirely. No minimum volumes, no exit penalties.
- Selective by structure. The business chooses which invoices to fund. Unlike whole-of-ledger factoring, the customer relationship and the rest of the ledger remain unaffected. See selective invoice funding for the structural model and /compare/invoice-finance-vs-factoring for the differences with factoring.
Pricing sits at 4 to 6% per invoice, with the exact rate set per invoice based on customer risk and term length.
7. Common questions from Wellington businesses
Can a Wellington supplier fund invoices to government departments? Yes. Government departments and Crown entities are typically high-quality debtors and are eligible. The funding decision is made on the underlying invoice and the contract's settlement profile.
Does invoice finance work with NZ payment-term conventions like 20th of the month following? Yes. The funding decision is made against the invoice's actual due date, so 20th-of-the-month-following invoices are funded on the same basis as fixed-day terms. The cost reflects the realised period to settlement.
Does the customer find out FundTap is involved? The model is selective, and the disclosure protocol with the customer depends on the invoice. The standard structure does not require general debtor notification across the ledger; the operator's customer relationships stay intact.
Is invoice finance regulated in New Zealand? Invoice finance is not a consumer credit product and falls outside the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act (CCCFA). FundTap operates as a commercial-credit provider under standard New Zealand AML/CFT obligations.
What happens if a customer pays late? The funding agreement covers a defined period. If the customer settles late, the cost adjusts per the invoice terms. The business is not exposed to a margin call or facility-wide review for one slow-paying customer.
8. Next step
A Wellington operator who suspects a cash flow timing gap rather than a trading problem can see if FundTap fits the business in under five minutes by connecting accounting software at /get-started.