TBS Factoring Review: Is It the Right Factoring Company for My Business?

TBS is one of the easiest-to-use freight factoring companies on the market, offering low-commitment contracts and very low thresholds for users, making it a great platform for those who are just starting out.

In this articles, we’ll give you a rundown of TBS’s fees, features, and pros and cons. However, if you’d like to check out some other companies, just fill out this quick, free form. You’ll be given quotes from various freight factoring companies, and can choose one that works best for you.

How Much Does TBS Factoring Cost?

TBS has a somewhat unique pricing model. Rather than taking a one-time chunk out of the invoice payment before forwarding it onto you, like most factoring companies do, TBS takes a small percentage for each week the invoice remains unpaid. This starts at 1.25%, but might be a bit higher based on various factors.

So for example, if you factored an invoice worth $5,000 with TBS Factoring, and your customer took four weeks to pay TBS, your final percentage owed would be 5%, or $250 of the total $5,000.

However, TBS Factoring does pride itself on its lack of extra fees. For example, there are no cancellation fees, no sign-up fees, and no listed advance fees.

TBS Factoring’s Pros and Cons

Pro – 100% advance

Most invoice factoring companies will offer up you up to 90% of the invoice’s value, giving you that last 10% once the customer’s payment clears. But under a non-recourse agreement, TBS will give you 100% of the value straight up – minus the fee, of course.

Pro – Minimal sign-up requirements

Since factoring companies are taking a bit of a risk by buying invoices that might not pay off, a lot of them require your business to have a great credit rating or a certain annual turnover. However, TBS has very forgiving sign-up requirements, which ask very little of new companies.

Pro – Fuel-related add-ons

Many freight factoring companies will also offer discounts on fuel cards and fuel advance programs, and TBS is no different. By using its freight factoring service, you’ll have your foot in the door for its other offerings.

Con – Support could be better

Support shortcomings were mentioned on some TBS customer reviews we checked. Users mainly complained about the difficulty of getting hold of their contact team and the long time to course-correct processing errors.

Con – Not suitable for big companies

If your freight business has dozens of invoices on the fly, TBS might not be for you. TBS uses spot factoring rather than contracts, which means that each invoice is its own transaction, rather than an automatic process. This can be helpful if you just need a couple of invoices factored, but for a dedicated factoring company, you should look elsewhere.

What Kind of Business Is TBS Factoring Best for?

TBS Factoring is better suited to serve new and small businesses.

New businesses can use TBS Factoring to receive advances on invoices here and there, in order to build up precious cash reserves that can be used to buy more trucks or fuel that is necessary to grow a trucking business.

Also, if you own a small freight business, you likely won’t have piles and piles of invoices at one time, so a factoring company that handles them one by one is a great idea.

And if your customers pay promptly, you won’t be losing much on each invoice, since you only pay 1.25% for each week the invoice goes unpaid. This can allow you to accrue cash during a critical period.

How Does TBS Factoring Compare to Its Competitors?

Price

Because of its unique pricing structure, its position against competitors depends entirely on the speed your customer pays the invoice.

Drawing from the example above, TBS’ 5% is quite a steep rate when compared to Apex’s flat 2% and Truckstop’s minimum one of 2.5%. That said, TBS’ 1.25% is lower than those. Long story short: if your customer pays up fast, TBS offers a great deal.

Also, by providing a clear pricing structure, TBS is more transparent than RTS Financial and Triumph Capital, which only provide fees upon request.

Features

By featuring a fuel card add-on, TBS is better than Truckstop, which doesn’t offer that service.

TBS offers a mobile app solution, which is handy for tracking your payments on-the-go. This makes it on-par with RTS but better than Triumph Capital, which doesn’t have its own app.

However, crucially for a company best suited to new businesses, TBS lacks an start-up program, like the one offered by Apex. Designed to help trucking ventures get on the road, this would solidify TBS’ relationship with this clientele.

Does TBS Factoring Have Good Customer Reviews?

TBS’ reviews are very mixed. It scores a 3.2/5 on Trustpilot and 3.1/5 on Google Reviews with most of its reviews being five-star ratings. The most common praise was about the speed of the business, and the customer service on offer.

However, the most common complaints were about the same aspects of the company – meaning that it might be a bit of a dice roll, or that there was a massive shift within the company at some point.

For their part, TBS consistently responds to reviews (good and bad), including the one featured just above, in which they’ve asked for the customer’s details so they could get in touch and discuss the situation further.

However, bearing them in mind, and thanks to its non-committal business model, TBS Factoring might be a good way for a small business to get a taste of freight factoring. But the longer you spend with TBS, you more clearly you might see the cracks starting to form in this service.

Our Methodology

To produce this article, we analysed TBS Factoring according to important criteria when you’re looking for a freight factoring company.

We investigates its upfront advance payment, as well as contract requirements, such as length and termination clauses, and its associated fees. Its support facilities and trustworthiness were also looked at.

Our findings enabled us to identify TBS Factoring’s key strengths and allowed us to inform you confidently about its service.