Software Provider Clear Unveils SMB Invoice Discounting Product

Online tax and FinTech software provider Clear has been getting into lending and has rolled out its new invoice discounting product for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), Economic Times reported Monday (Feb. 28).

Per the report, Clear’s new product for invoice discounting will be available for its existing customers, and invoice discounting as a practice can help out with letting smaller businesses get loans and credit from financial institutions.

Clear founder and CEO Archit Gupta said the company’s goal was to provide tech-based solutions for business-to-business (B2B) needs.

“We are partnering with banks and NBFCs (non-banking finance companies) to operationalize supply chain credit at scale by enabling quick, efficiently priced credit based on actual business performance and not just asset ownership,” he said.

Clear has already been providing a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for clients, which helps corporates pay their bills and make electronic invoices, providing the necessary underwriting capabilities. The company has also been reportedly focusing on more international expansion.

PYMNTS wrote recently that India’s new mandatory electronic invoicing rules will have far-reaching impacts.

See also: India’s New B2B eInvoicing Rule Could Impact 180,000 Companies

The new rules have been coming down for companies in waves, at first made mandatory for companies with a turnover of ₹500 crore or more back in October 2020, and then extended to those with ₹100 crore, then to ₹50 crore, and recently to anything with annual turnover above ₹20 crore or more.

The report says this will all help out the country’s goods and service tax (GST) regulations.

A company is able to have several GST identification numbers if it runs a business in two or more states or Union territories, or if the registration process involves several business verticals.

An anonymous official said the eInvoicing process can track invoices in real time and cut down on the scope of fraud going on. The official said the country hoped to add 75% to 80% more through lowering the threshold this last time.