™
Working capital for
professional firms.
Your firm bills brilliant work — it just gets paid weeks later. Short-term finance bridges the gap between the hours done and the invoices settled, and on every facility the firm borrows, never a partner personally. No personal guarantee.
Creditcorp is the growing name for the Credicorp group, and Credicorp Limited is the lender behind it. For a professional-services firm it does one thing: short-term working capital that smooths the lumps between fee cycles.
Accountancy practices, solicitors, surveyors, architects, recruiters, marketing and management consultancies — the work is the asset, and the cash arrives on a delay. You deliver an audit, complete a conveyance, run a project to milestone, then wait thirty, sixty, sometimes ninety days to be paid. Payroll, rent and software do not wait that long. These pages walk through how a Business Bridging Loan, Credicorp Flex or Credicorp Slice tends to be used in a practice like yours, so you can picture the fit before you apply.
Throughout, the borrower is the firm — a UK limited company (Ltd), LLP or PLC — not the partner or director who signs. That means no personal guarantee, no charge over a home and no personal credit check on an individual. These are not personal loans, payday loans or sole-trader finance. When you’re ready, applying happens on the lender’s own site, credicorp.co.uk.
Why professional firms hit working-capital gaps
A profitable practice can still be short of cash on a Tuesday. Here is where the strain usually comes from.
The work-in-progress lag
In a fee-earning practice, value builds up long before it can be billed. Hours sit as unbilled work in progress; once invoiced, they sit again as debtors until the client pays. Between those two waits, a firm can be carrying a quarter of a year’s revenue that it has earned but not yet banked. Bridging a slice of that lag keeps the lights on without chasing clients harder than the relationship can stand.
Hiring ahead of the revenue
Growth in professional services means people. A new associate, trainee, surveyor or consultant costs salary, on-costs and desk from day one but rarely covers their own fees for the first few months. Funding that ramp-up — rather than turning down the work that justified the hire — is one of the most common reasons a practice reaches for short-term finance.
Premises, kit and renewals
A bigger office, a fit-out, a deposit and first quarter’s rent, a refresh of laptops for the team, or an annual lump for practice-management software, an audit-tooling licence or professional indemnity cover — these land as one-off hits that have nothing to do with when clients happen to pay.
The kind of finance that fits a practice
Three shapes of short-term credit. Which one suits depends on whether the gap is a one-off, an ongoing rhythm, or a single supplier bill. Full detail — and the figures — live on the products page and on the lender’s site.
A one-off gap → Business Bridging Loan
You know the amount and roughly when the money to repay it arrives — a new office deposit, a software renewal, payroll for the month a big project completes. A single lump sum over a short, fixed term fits cleanly.
An ongoing rhythm → Credicorp Flex
Billing that runs in quarters or to project milestones leaves cash flow uneven month to month. A revolving facility lets the firm draw when a fee run is still outstanding and repay when it lands — with interest only on what is actually drawn.
A single supplier bill → Credicorp Slice
An annual PI premium, a practice-management licence or a recruitment fee landing in one go can be spread over a few weeks. The supplier is paid in full today; the firm repays in instalments for a flat fee.
The firm borrows — not the partners
In a partnership especially, keeping personal finances out of business funding matters.
Plenty of business lenders will only advance money to a small firm if a partner or director signs a personal guarantee — often backed by a charge over their home. For a professional practice that is a real bind: partners join, leave and retire, and nobody wants their house tied to the firm’s overdraft, or their personal credit file marked by a facility the practice took out.
Credicorp does it differently. The agreement is between the lender and your firm as a body corporate — the Ltd, LLP or PLC. That means:
- No personal guarantee from any partner or director.
- No charge over a home or any personal asset.
- No personal credit check on the individuals who sign.
- The firm’s liability stays the firm’s — partners’ personal positions stay separate.
For a practice that may bring in or part with partners over the life of a facility, that separation is not a detail — it is the whole point.
A worked example
An illustration, not a real client — just to show the shape of it.
A mid-sized accountancy practice, structured as an LLP, comes out of a busy compliance season with a strong order book. Three months of year-end and tax work has been delivered, but much of it is still unbilled work in progress, and the invoices already raised are sitting in debtors on the firm’s usual thirty-day terms. The numbers are healthy — the cash simply has not arrived yet.
At the same time the practice wants to bring forward a hire it had planned for the autumn: a qualified manager who can take on the new advisory work the partners keep having to turn away. The salary starts now; the fees that justify it land over the following two quarters. Payroll, PAYE and the office costs do not pause while the firm waits to be paid.
Rather than lean on the partners’ own savings or hand a bank a personal guarantee, the LLP opens a short-term facility in the firm’s name. It draws to cover the wage bill through the gap, then repays as the season’s invoices clear and the new manager’s work starts billing. No partner signs a personal guarantee; no home is on the line. The figures and product fit would be confirmed with the lender at credicorp.co.uk.
Professional-services funding questions
The things practice owners and partners ask most. For anything specific to your firm, the lender’s team can help.
Can an accountancy or law firm borrow if it trades as an LLP?
Yes. Credicorp lends to UK bodies corporate — private limited companies (Ltd), limited liability partnerships (LLPs) and PLCs. A great many practices are structured as LLPs, so the LLP itself is the borrower. What it cannot fund is a sole practitioner trading in their own name, because that is an individual, not a company.
We are owed a lot in unbilled work in progress. Does that help or hurt an application?
Healthy work in progress and a strong debtor book are exactly the kind of pipeline these products are built around. They show the cash is coming — it just has not landed yet. The lender assesses the company on its own trading and bank statements, so a solid, billable pipeline tends to support an application rather than count against it.
Will a partner have to give a personal guarantee or put up their home?
No. The agreement is between Credicorp and your firm as a body corporate. There is no personal guarantee, no charge over a partner’s or director’s home, and no personal credit check on the individuals who sign. That keeps partners’ personal finances entirely separate from a short-term working-capital facility.
What can the money actually be used for in a professional firm?
Anything that keeps the practice running between fee cycles — covering payroll and PAYE while a quarter’s invoices are still being collected, funding a new fee-earner ahead of the revenue they will bring in, a deposit or fit-out on a new office, professional indemnity premiums, or software and practice-management licences renewing in one lump.
How fast can funds reach the firm’s account?
Speed lives with the operating lender, not this site, so always check the live terms. As a rule, once the firm is approved and the agreement signed, funds are released to the company’s business bank account — often the same working day. Apply or confirm timings at credicorp.co.uk.
Is this regulated consumer credit?
No. Lending to a body corporate is not a regulated credit agreement under Article 60B of the FSMA Regulated Activities Order 2001, so this is exempt business lending rather than consumer credit. It is not a personal loan and not for sole traders. The full regulatory position is set out on the group site, creditcorpgroup.co.uk.
More general questions are answered on the FAQ, and the how-it-works overview walks through the whole journey from application to drawdown.
Related sectors
If your work crosses into a neighbouring trade, these guides may fit too: technology & IT for milestone-billed software and consulting work, creative & media for project-led agencies, and property & lettings for surveyors and managing agents. The full set is on the industries hub. Company, legal and trade-mark detail for the group lives at creditcorpgroup.co.uk.
Ready when your practice is
Applying, drawing down and managing the facility all happen on the lender’s site, credicorp.co.uk — with the firm as the borrower, never a partner.