Case Study

Looking up at the skyline in any town or city can be an amazing sight.  The range of buildings can vary hugely from flat roofs to spires to tall chimneys.  Whilst we may marvel, to one man it’s his workplace.  Bob Kirkland is a steeplejack and has over 50 years’ experience of working in the industry with experience across the industrial chimney, lightning protection and the steeplejack high access fields of activity. 

Setting up his firm – Bob Kirkland Steeplejacks – in 2015, his desire was to run a small and successful business servicing clients’ high-rise buildings and chimneys.  The firm, based out of Chelmsford and operating nationwide, offer clients a comprehensive range of services including inspection, modifications, repairs, relining, rebuilding, lightning protection, CCTV surveys, and demolition.

The business operates as a sub-contractor to a large number of national and international organisations, obtaining contracts and being named as preferred suppliers with many large multinational corporations.  Most notably, the firm undertakes works for the Tate Modern on their copper roof, through a property management company.

Running a business can be challenging and as Bob reveals he experiences two of the most common challenges – the two L’s – Labour and Late Payment.  “We are fortunate that we have a lot of work and are always busy – almost 24/7.  The challenge of finding, employing and training good people takes time and without people we can’t do our job.  But late payment is a scourge to our business.  Clients used to pay in 30-60 days but now the norm seems to be 60-90 days which causes cashflow issues.  We must pay wages and buy materials for jobs and have to fund this whilst we wait for payment to come in for jobs done”.

With turnover of £530k pa, they can have a significant amount of funds tied up in unpaid invoices at any one time.  Income they have earned which could be put to work in their business but frustratingly is not.

As Bob continues: “We work long hours 24/7 and chasing up unpaid invoices is a time-consuming task and is deprioritized when you have client jobs to complete.  It became evident that I needed a funding solution to help mitigate the impact of late paying clients”.

Bob undertook his own research into funders online and approached Pulse Finance to find out how their invoice finance solution could help.  Having found out more about Bob and his firm, Pulse Finance were delighted to deliver a Factoring solution where the business benefited from a £75k funding facility to support their cashflow position giving them the confidence to continue driving their new business effort.  Alongside funding, the solution also includes a sales ledger management service whereby, Pulse Finance will manage the collection of invoice payments from Bob’s clients removing this time-consuming job from Bob and his team.

As Bob explains it was an easy process to put in place: “Pulse Finance are very easy to deal with, and the facility was put in place quickly and smoothly. It gives us peace of mind that we have a backup plan to mitigate the challenge of late payment.  They also have a system which is easy to navigate where I can review my account online to see how much funding is available and which of my customers have paid or not paid – it all helps me to stay in control of my account”.

 With funding in place to support the firms cashflow and the team at Pulse Finance managing their invoice collections, Bob is looking forward to getting on with scaling heights and looking after his clients.