An effective form of financing is to stretch accounts payable payment terms. Some suppliers will respond to your request if they can agree to a price increase in return. You must then decide how important liquidity is to you.
You know, of course, that suppliers become suspicious when asked to extend their payment terms. You should do this early, while your credit rating with credit insurers is still acceptable.
Also, only ask suppliers with whom you have a relationship of trust and with whom you have an ongoing supplier relationship. These suppliers will be more likely to respond to your request and accommodate you.
Too often, late contact or no contact at all with suppliers leads to self-inflicted liquidity crises. If incoming invoices due are not paid without communication with suppliers, those suppliers will take action. They will inquire about your creditworthiness with credit insurers, who in turn will take notice of your company and, if necessary, downgrade your credit rating and reduce the insured amount. If you are working on larger customer projects, guarantors will now take notice of your company. Your company may no longer be able to get a guarantee for down payments received. As a result, customers will no longer want to pay you down payments. They will hire your competitors. Not only will your incoming payments stop, but your incoming orders will shrink to zero. Your commercial bank sees this and calls in credit lines. You see how quickly an unstoppable downward spiral can be set in motion, driving your company into insolvency or – in the best case – making it a takeover candidate for a competitor.
Therefore, only approach selected suppliers and, above all, approach them early on.
There are service providers who specialize in sale and leaseback transactions with whom you can bring liquidity into your business if necessary.