Sell worldwide and keep the predictability of trading in Pounds Sterling

Everyone in international trade prefers to stick to doing business in their currency. However, when buyers and sellers are from different countries, someone usually has to give in. Usually, it is a small business with few alternatives and less negotiating power that has to yield.  Yet, selling internationally when you are small can be akin to the sword of Damocles.  You can stick to quoting & invoicing in your home currency and risk losing your customers who leave you for someone willing to quote them in their currency.

 

Alternatively, you can invoice your customers in their currency. This, however, introduces a new level of complexity and risks for small business finances - from dealing with multiple bank accounts to messy accounting and, more importantly, the impact of currency fluctuations.  Luckily, today’s small businesses can access solutions that greatly reduce this complexity and make selling internationally a lot fairer for growing businesses.

 

Until not so long ago, a business had to open separate foreign currency bank accounts if they wanted to access payments from customers around the world.  Opening such accounts was a tedious process, and maintaining them was costly. 

 

Nowadays, you can open a single multi-currency account (or a “wallet”) and offer your clients the ability to pay you in their currency. HedgeFlows offers a single multi-currency account where customers can pay you in 30 currencies via secure SWIFT payments, still the most popular means of payment in cross-border B2B trade.

 

Your customers in Europe, the United States, and Canada can also pay your multi-currency account in Euros and Dollars via local payment routes. This means faster payment times and no need for expensive international wire transfers.  This can also be a cheaper alternative to accepting payments via PayPal or credit cards - often saving your business a couple of per cent on foreign conversion and merchant fees.

 

Multi-currency accounts can greatly simplify the process of collecting from your customers but don’t help much with the impact of currency fluctuations. In today’s volatile world, exchange rates can easily swing several per cent between when you quote your customers, and they pay you. This can wipe out the profit margins you factored in your quotes.  And if your business mainly relies on foreign customers, such currency swings can result in cashflows problems or make you less competitive in foreign markets.

 

HedgeFlows is a simple way to sell in foreign currencies and remove this uncertainty from your finances.  You can easily book guaranteed exchange rates in advance for any foreign customer invoice as soon as it is booked in your cloud accounting system.  This fixes its value in Pounds Sterling, and you can be certain to receive the correct amount in Pounds Sterling when your customer pays you weeks or even months later - in their currency.

 

The results - more predictable profit margins and cashflows, easier finances and accounting, and happier customers are why we have been building HedgeFlows. To make global trade more affordable and fairer for small businesses.