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Join For FreealtLine's flexible and low-cost factoring services can help qualifying businesses meet some of the financial needs.
Total Rating | 4.5 |
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Interest Rates & Fees | Excellent |
Application Process | Good |
Sales & Advertising Transparency | Good |
Customer Service | Good |
Reviews, Complaints, & Testimonials | Excellent |
Table of Contents
altLINE is an accounts receivable-based financing platform owned by The Southern Bank. It’s not uncommon for traditional banks to partner with alternative financing institutions, but altLINE is unusual because it’s an alternative financing service directly owned and operated by a bank.
altLINE offers invoice factoring. Invoice factoring allows businesses to sell unpaid invoices to a factoring company for a fee. This allows the business to liquefy its invoices ahead of schedule.
altLINE also offers accounts receivable factoring, which operates under a similar logic but has more stringent qualifications.
Here are the borrower qualifications for altLINE:
Time In Business | N/A (you need to have contracts in hand at a minimum, however) |
Business Revenue | $15,000 per month in factored invoices |
Credit Score | N/A |
Like many factoring companies, altLINE’s borrower qualifications are pretty modest. Startups can qualify for altLINE factoring, provided they have contracts in hand. altLINE doesn’t have a minimum credit score, but it does check, so the worse your credit is, the higher you can expect your rates to be.
Additional qualifications:
Here are the interest rates and fees for altLINE:
Credit Facility Size | up to $4 million per month |
Advance Rate | 80%-90% |
Discount Rate | 0.5%-5% (upper limit includes late fees) |
Max Overdue Account | 90 days; 135 days for invoices made to large corporations |
Additional Fees | Expedited funding adds 1% |
Contract Length | 12 months |
Monthly Minimums | $15,000-$20,000 |
Factor All Invoices | No |
Recourse Or Non-Recourse | Recourse |
Notification Or Non-Notification | Notification |
altLINE deals in invoice factoring and accounts receivable factoring. Both operate on similar principles: Your invoices will go through altLINE for the duration of your contract. altLINE will then advance you between 80%-90% of the receipt, giving itself a discount rate of between 0.5%-5%. The upper limit of that range represents the highest amount you’ll be charged by altLINE should the invoice go unpaid for more than 30 days. You’re looking at a discount range between 0.5%-3% for on-time fulfillment.
Other than late fees, altLINE doesn’t charge too many other additional fees. If you want your funds expedited, altLINE will trim an additional 1% off your invoice.
You notice above that altLINE has both contract lengths and monthly minimums, which requires further elaboration. altLINE does not require you to factor anything in any given month of your contract; however, the company won’t enter into a contract with a business that has less than $15,000/month in invoices or accounts receivable. The contract lasts for 12 months, but this effectively means that you agree to have altLINE be your exclusive factoring company for the length of the term. Additionally, altLINE will usually allow a customer to exit the contract within the first two months if there’s a good reason.
altLINE’s application process is handled online and, according to the company, takes around 10 minutes to complete. Turnaround time can be as little as 24 hours, assuming you can provide all the required information and all background checks execute smoothly.
The documents you’ll need for your application include the following:
Some customers may be asked to submit additional information.
altLINE’s advertising strategy is frustrating because its website provides quite a bit of information about how invoice factoring and its service works in broad strokes but little in terms of specifics. However, this comes across as more of an oversight than any concerted effort to hide information, as altLINE’s fee structure is pretty straightforward.
altLINE wears its connection to The Southern Bank with pride, highlighting that a traditional lending institution with deep pockets backs the enterprise.
altLINE Customer Service | Availability |
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Phone Support | |
Email Support | |
Support Tickets | |
Live Chat | |
Dedicated Support Representative | |
Knowledge Base or Help Center | |
Videos & Tutorials | |
Company Blog | |
Social Media |
Most customer reviews speak highly of the company’s customer service. So as long as you’re not expecting immediate contact, things look pretty good in this regard.
The altLINE division of The Southern Bank is accredited with the Better Business Bureau and currently has an A+ ranking. There currently are no reviews or complaints on the site. altLINE is a fairly new service, so it’s not unusual that it has a very sparse customer review footprint. In the case of the Better Business Bureau, no news is often good news.
Some possible things to watch out for from altLINE include:
It’s a similar situation for positive reviews, as altLINE doesn’t toot its own horn too loudly with testimonials. But most of the available customer reviews are positive. altLINE currently rates 4.7 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot.
Customers liked:
The traditional banking system may be slow to adapt to new technologies and paradigms, but that doesn’t mean they’re asleep at the wheel. The Southern Bank seems to have pulled off the impressive feat of developing a branded, alternative lending-style service within the bounds of its own operations.
altLINE can factor high-value invoices, but the flexibility allows you to pick and choose what (if any) invoices you want to factor in any given month. The rates are good to reasonable, with minimal nickel and diming. The qualifications are forgiving, but very small businesses may not meet the monthly minimum qualifications.
Overall, altLINE is a handy service with minimal risk, and it’s just getting started.
Looking for more factoring companies? Check out our best factoring companies.
The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆
altLINE |
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After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see altLINE for yourself.
The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆
altLINE |
---|
After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see altLINE for yourself.
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Merchant Maverick’s ratings are editorial in nature, and are not aggregated from user reviews. Each staff reviewer at Merchant Maverick is a subject matter expert with experience researching, testing, and evaluating small business software and services. The rating of this company or service is based on the author’s expert opinion and analysis of the product, and assessed and seconded by another subject matter expert on staff before publication. Merchant Maverick’s ratings are not influenced by affiliate partnerships.
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