Customs Broker and Freight Forwarder Funding in McAllen

A service business on a border

McAllen sits on the Mexican border at the southern tip of Texas, across from Reynosa, and has 142,210 residents at the 2020 census. Cross-border trade creates work for the people who handle the paperwork and the movement: brokers who prepare entries, forwarders who arrange shipments, and the dispatchers and clerks around them. The work is knowledge-heavy and people-heavy, which means payroll is the biggest cost, and the invoice for that work gets paid later.

Payroll first, receivable later

1. Work is done. Staff prepare documents, track shipments and answer client questions.
2. Staff are paid. Every pay cycle, regardless of when the client pays.
3. Invoice goes out. Payment terms vary, and some clients pay faster than others.
4. Payment arrives. Perhaps 30 days or more after the work was done.

The cost side moves weekly. The income side moves monthly. A business that grows adds staff before it adds receipts, so growth widens the gap.

Costs that sit between you and your client

Whether any of these apply depends on how your firm operates, so check your own agreements.

When working capital helps

It helps when you have good clients and slow payment: payroll is steady, the receivables are real and the gap is temporary. It also helps when you want to take on a larger client and need to hire before the first invoice. It does not help if a few clients are chronically late or disputing charges; those are collection problems to address directly.

Related pages include import-export trading funding for your clients, produce packers and distributors, and working capital itself.

A short illustration with round numbers

For illustration only, not our terms or a typical outcome: a firm with ten staff and $60,000 in monthly payroll invoices clients on net-30 terms. If a new client adds $15,000 a month in work but pays after 45 days, the firm covers six weeks of that client's costs before the first dollar arrives. Hiring one more person for that account adds more. The business is profitable on paper long before the cash arrives, which is exactly the situation where a bridge is useful.

Applying

The application takes about five minutes and uses a soft credit pull. Sole proprietors, including independent brokers and one-person forwarding shops, can apply. Funding runs from $25,000 to $5,000,000 and can arrive in as little as 24 hours after approval. See the McAllen hub or start the application.