Waiting 60 or 90 days to get paid is one problem. Running the receivables, advances and funder reconciliation behind that wait through spreadsheets, or through software that expects you to work its way, is another. Most off-the-shelf invoice finance tools are built around a fixed process and a per-transaction fee. ByteGears builds the platform around how your business actually handles invoices.
First, a clear distinction. ByteGears builds software, not finance. We don’t lend money or arrange credit. What we build is the platform that sits around invoice finance: managing invoices and customers, requesting and approving advances, reconciling against funders, and showing the finance team where cash actually is. If you’re a business using invoice finance, that’s the system you run it through. If you’re a lender or factor, it’s the platform you operate. Either way, you pay once for software you own instead of a subscription that never stops, and you get a London-based team that can connect it to your accounting system, keep it on the right side of UK rules, and pick up the phone when you need them.
Where off-the-shelf invoice finance software falls short
Invoice finance is well served by SaaS at the simple end. The problems tend to appear once your situation stops being simple:
- Per-transaction pricing that punishes growth. Per-invoice fees and weekly factoring rates look small individually. Across a business doing £1m or more in financed invoices a year, they add up to tens of thousands annually, and the bill rises with your volume rather than with the value you get.
- Factoring when you need discounting. Many popular platforms are disclosed-factoring only — your customers see the arrangement and the funder handles collections. If you need confidential invoice discounting, where customers never know and you keep control of collections, those platforms simply don’t offer it.
- Rigid approval routing. Vendor-defined or algorithmic approval logic can’t easily mirror cost-centre sign-off, regional approval chains, project-milestone gates, or different advance rates by customer segment.
- Legacy and unusual accounting systems. If you’re not on Xero or QuickBooks Online, SaaS connectors thin out fast. Older on-premise Sage installs and bespoke finance systems often need a custom bridge or a manual feed.
- Limited reporting. Finance teams want DSO trends, advance utilisation, cost of financing and ageing analysis their own way. Fixed vendor reports rarely cover it.
- Data sitting with a third party. Detailed receivables data — customers, credit terms, payment history — held on someone else’s platform, often on overseas infrastructure, is a real concern for UK finance teams.
- Vendor lock-in. Proprietary data formats and a roadmap you don’t control mean migration is painful and price rises are someone else’s decision.
The result is a stack of workarounds, a finance team reconciling between disconnected systems by hand, and a cost base that grows quietly every quarter.
What we build instead
We start with your receivables process
We map how invoices, advances and collections actually move through your business today — who raises what, who approves, how funders are reconciled — then build software that fits it. If your current approach works, the platform keeps it.
Built around the right finance model
Factoring and confidential invoice discounting are not interchangeable. Factoring moves collections to the funder and is visible to customers; discounting keeps both with you and is accounted for as borrowing rather than a sale of receivables. We build the workflow, customer-facing communications and reporting around the model you actually run — and we can support both if you use a mix.
You pay once
A single development cost replaces the per-invoice and weekly fees. For a higher-volume business those fees can run well into five figures a year, so for the right buyer the maths over three to five years favours owning the system. We won’t pretend that’s true for everyone — at low volume, SaaS is cheaper and we’ll say so.
It connects to what you already use
Accounting integration is usually the make-or-break piece — Xero, QuickBooks, Sage 50, Sage Intacct, NetSuite — alongside banking via Open Banking, Faster Payments and BACS. We plan around the real constraints (API rate limits, partial field exposure, regional variants) in discovery, not after go-live.
UK compliance and data residency built in
UK GDPR, an immutable audit trail across every submission, approval, advance and settlement, role-based access, and UK hosting so receivables data stays in the country. Where you lend or arrange credit yourself, FCA obligations apply; where there are international counterparties, AML/KYC and sanctions screening may be needed. We design those controls in from the start.
Room to grow
The architecture is modular. Credit scoring, collections workflow, a white-label customer portal, multi-currency or bad-debt insurance integration can be added later without a rebuild.
Support from people in your timezone
Our team is in London. You get help during UK business hours from someone who knows your system, and you own the code and the data outright.
Features we typically build in
Every build is tailored, but most include some version of these:
- Invoice and customer records — capture by web form, email or accounting-software sync, with line items, payment terms, status and supporting documents
- Advance request and multi-step approval workflow, with SLA deadlines and automatic escalation
- Conditional approval rules — for example auto-approve low-risk invoices below a threshold, escalate high-value ones
- Funding and settlement processing, with advance repayment tracking against each invoice
- Customer payment reconciliation, matching payments to invoices and to the advances they repay
- AR ageing, DSO trends, advance utilisation and cost-of-financing reporting, with export to Excel
- Funder and facility management — credit limits, available headroom, funder references — for businesses working with more than one source
- A full audit trail and role-based access for compliance and reconciliation
- Banking connections for fund transfers and payment reconciliation
- Optional extras as you need them: collections and dunning workflow, credit risk scoring, a white-label customer portal, multi-currency, AML/KYC screening
How the project runs
We work in four phases, and we favour shipping a working core early over a long build in the dark.
1. Discovery and planning (2 to 3 weeks)
We interview the people who run the current process, dig into where it breaks, confirm whether you’re factoring or discounting, and map the integrations. Accounting and banking integration get scoped properly here — underestimating it is the most common reason these projects slip. By the end we have clear objectives and a technical spec.
2. Development (8 to 16 weeks for the core)
We build in regular review cycles. A sensible first release covers invoice and customer records, advance requests, an approval workflow, AR ageing reporting and one accounting integration. ERP integration, banking connections, collections and a white-label portal are usually a second phase.
3. Testing and migration (2 to 4 weeks)
Security testing, user acceptance testing, and careful data migration — historical invoices and customers, facility details, advance and payment history. We validate data before and after, and run alongside your existing process during cutover rather than a hard switch.
4. Training and support (ongoing)
We train your finance, AR and approver teams, then offer support arrangements from occasional hourly help to ongoing maintenance.
What it costs
Custom development costs more up front than a SaaS subscription. Whether it pays back depends entirely on your volume and how non-standard your needs are.
- A focused first release — core invoicing, advances, approvals, reporting and one accounting integration — typically lands around £50,000 to £80,000.
- A standard build adding a second integration and fuller reporting runs roughly £80,000 to £120,000.
- Adding ERP integration, banking connections, mobile access and a collections workflow takes it towards £120,000 to £200,000.
- A white-label, multi-tenant platform with full compliance tooling and BI reporting can reach £200,000 and up.
Set that against SaaS. A business financing £1m or more of invoices a year can pay tens of thousands annually in per-invoice or weekly fees, with the bill rising as volume grows. Over three to five years a custom platform can come out level or ahead — but at low volume, or with a simple single-customer pattern, SaaS will be cheaper and we’ll tell you that plainly. The consultation is free, and we’ll give you an estimate based on your actual volume, finance model and integrations.
Who tends to need this
Custom invoice finance platforms tend to make sense for businesses turning over roughly £2m to £20m, where receivables are uneven, payment terms run long, and the situation isn’t generic:
- Manufacturers and wholesalers funding raw materials and labour on 45-day supplier terms while customers pay on 60 to 90 days, often with retention-of-title clauses and seasonal demand
- Staffing and recruitment agencies paying temporary workers weekly while waiting 30 to 60 days for client payment — typically high invoice volumes that benefit from generation off a timesheet system
- Logistics and transport firms covering fuel, maintenance and driver wages across 30 to 60 day payment delays, with advance decisions that vary by customer and load
- Construction companies financing milestone and progress payments against 60 to 90 day terms, with retention reserves, disputes and Housing Grants Act considerations to track
- Creative agencies and consultancies smoothing lumpy project billing against bi-weekly payroll, often needing project-based approval and time-tracking validation
- Import/export businesses dealing with long international payment cycles, multi-currency, and AML/KYC obligations on overseas counterparties
- Lenders and factors who want a white-label borrower-facing platform built around UK compliance and banking, rather than a generic vendor product
A custom build can be shaped around the payment practices, finance model and compliance requirements specific to your industry — and around legacy systems an off-the-shelf platform can’t reach.
Common Questions About Custom Invoice Financing Platforms
Is this the finance, or the software?
The software. ByteGears builds the platform that manages receivables, advance requests, approval workflows, funder reconciliation and reporting. We don't lend money or arrange credit. If you're a business using invoice finance, we build the system you run it through. If you're a lender or factor, we build the platform you operate. We don't replace your bank or your invoice finance provider.
Custom build or off-the-shelf SaaS — which makes sense for us?
SaaS is usually enough if you have low invoice volume, standard payment terms, and you're happy entering invoices manually or via CSV. A custom build starts to pay off when per-invoice or weekly fees stack up at volume, when you need confidential invoice discounting rather than disclosed factoring, when you have to integrate with a legacy or unusual accounting system, or when your approval workflows don't fit a vendor's fixed routing. We'll tell you honestly which side of that line you're on.
What's the typical development timeline?
A focused first release — invoice and customer records, advance requests, an approval workflow, AR ageing reporting and one accounting integration — usually takes around 12 to 16 weeks. Adding ERP integration, banking connections, collections workflow or a white-label customer portal pushes that towards 24 to 32 weeks. We'd rather ship a working core early and build out from there than disappear for nine months.
Can you integrate with our existing systems?
Yes. Accounting integration is usually the critical piece — Xero, QuickBooks, Sage 50, Sage Intacct or NetSuite. We also connect to banking via Open Banking, Faster Payments and BACS, and to ERP systems where needed. Accounting APIs have real constraints — Xero rate limits, partial field exposure, regional variants — so we plan integration properly in discovery rather than discovering the gaps after go-live.
What about data security and compliance?
We build to UK GDPR with encryption, role-based access, and a full immutable audit trail covering every submission, approval, advance and settlement. We host on UK infrastructure so receivables data stays in the country. Where you're lending or arranging credit yourself, FCA obligations apply, and where there are international counterparties, AML/KYC and sanctions screening may be needed — we design those controls in rather than bolting them on.
Does invoice discounting and factoring change how this is built?
Yes, and it matters. With factoring, collections move to the funder and your customers see the arrangement. With confidential invoice discounting, you keep collections and customers never know. They also get accounted for differently — factoring as a sale of receivables, discounting as short-term borrowing. We build the workflow, customer communications and reporting to match the model you actually use.
How do you handle support and changes after launch?
You own the code and the data. We offer support arrangements ranging from occasional hourly help to ongoing maintenance, and the platform is built modular so things like credit scoring, collections or a customer portal can be added later without a rebuild. No vendor lock-in and no surprise price increases on a subscription you can't leave.