Supply Chain Finance

Understand the transaction. Evaluate the finance. Strengthen working-capital decisions.

A profitable order can still create a serious cash-flow problem.

Suppliers may need to pay for materials, production and transport long before their customers settle an invoice. Buyers need reliable supply while managing their own payment commitments. Finance providers need evidence that the transaction is genuine, the payment rights are enforceable and the proposed funding can be repaid.

Supply Chain Finance connects these needs.

This practical online course from eBSI Trade Finance Academy helps you understand how financing works across the supply chain, where it can create value and what must be checked before money moves.

Build practical understanding across the full trade cycle

Learn to look beyond a product name or an attractive financing rate.

You will examine what is being financed, which commercial events have already occurred, who must pay, how much cash becomes available and which risks remain with each participant.

The course connects commercial decisions with financial calculations and operational controls. It covers both buyer-led programmes and supplier-led financing, with examples relevant to SMEs and larger domestic and international supply chains.

Whether you are reviewing a supplier-finance offer, discussing funding with a bank or assessing a programme proposal, you will develop a clearer basis for asking questions and comparing options.

What you will learn

Through the course, you will learn how to:

• Identify funding gaps between purchasing, production, delivery and collection.

• Analyse the effect of payment terms on buyers and suppliers.

• Compare approved payables finance, factoring, receivables discounting and dynamic discounting.

• Recognise when purchase order, inventory, distributor or pre-shipment finance may be appropriate.

• Calculate financing costs, net proceeds and available funding.

• Follow an invoice through approval, financing, payment and reconciliation.

• Spot warning signs of duplicate financing, fabricated trade and payment diversion.

• Assess whether a programme delivers useful supplier liquidity as well as buyer benefits.

• Evaluate implementation, digital-platform and funding-continuity requirements.

Ten chapters connecting the concepts to practice

1. Commercial foundations

Understand the purpose of Supply Chain Finance and the roles of the main participants. Explore open-account trading, buyer-supplier tensions and the relationship between goods, data and money.

2. Working capital and pricing

Examine receivables, payables, inventory and the cash conversion cycle. Work through early-payment discounts, advance rates, reserves and the distinction between a financing rate and the actual cash received.

3. Techniques across the trade cycle

Compare purchase order finance, pre-shipment funding, inventory finance, structured commodity finance, post-shipment loans, receivables discounting, factoring, forfaiting and distributor finance.

4. Approved payables finance

Follow a buyer-led programme from the underlying commercial transaction to settlement. Examine invoice approval, payment undertakings, supplier election, credit notes, dynamic discounting and funding structures.

5. Supplier-led receivables finance

Explore receivables purchases and secured lending, assignment, notification, recourse, eligibility, borrowing bases, dilution, concentration and credit protection.

6. Operations and transaction integrity

Identify the controls needed for onboarding, matching purchase orders and receipts, resolving invoice exceptions, checking financing requests, verifying payment instructions and reconciling settlement.

7. Risk, fraud and compliance

Examine credit and performance risk alongside operational, country and currency exposures. Investigate duplicate invoices, fictitious trade, related parties, unusual payments and financial-crime warning indicators.

8. Law, accounting and digital trade

Understand why legal enforceability, accounting treatment and technology capabilities require separate analysis. Explore true sale, supplier-finance disclosures, electronic invoicing, platform integration and electronic transferable records.

9. Programme implementation

Build a balanced business case, assess supplier needs and compare finance providers. Learn what to test during a pilot, how to measure participation and how to plan for funding withdrawal.

10. Strategic application and resilience

Consider SME access, international programmes, deep-tier finance, sustainability incentives and supply-chain disruption. Apply the course concepts in an integrated transaction workshop.

Learn through realistic decisions

The course uses clearly identified fictional cases to help you practise the decisions behind real transactions.

Examples include:

• A furniture supplier needing materials before an invoice exists.

• A buyer receiving fewer goods than the supplier has invoiced.

• An approved invoice accompanied by an unexpected bank-account change.

• Two financing requests that appear to relate to the same delivery.

• A receivables portfolio where exclusions and existing drawings reduce available cash.

• An exporter needing production finance followed by funding against an approved receivable.

These cases encourage you to connect the financing opportunity with the evidence, calculations and controls needed to support it.

What is included?

• 100 learning screens organised into ten chapters.

• Narrated teaching content to support your study.

• 20 practice decisions with feedback explaining the available choices.

• 20 additional explanations exploring selected topics in more detail.

• Three captioned instructional videos following transaction and investigation scenarios.

• 25 instructional diagrams supporting processes, comparisons and calculations.

• A 35-entry glossary and searchable course content.

• A comprehensive 64-page student manual, including worked examples, chapter activities and a transaction review checklist.

• A separate 20-question assessment drawn from a bank of 50 questions.

Who should take this course?

This course is relevant to:

• SME owners, exporters and importers evaluating funding options.

• Trade-finance and banking professionals.

• Treasury, finance and working-capital professionals.

• Procurement and supplier-relationship professionals.

• Logistics and supply-chain managers.

• Professionals involved in receivables, payables, credit control or transaction operations.

Basic familiarity with commercial transactions and invoices will help you connect the examples to your work. The course introduces the core concepts before progressing to more detailed financing and control decisions.

Assessment and results

The assessment selects 20 questions from a 50-question bank, covering all ten chapters.

The pass mark is 60%, or 12 correct answers. On completion, you will see your score and can choose to save the result or retake the test with a fresh random selection of questions.

The practice decisions within the teaching course are unscored, allowing you to explore the reasoning before taking the assessment.

Make better-informed financing decisions

Supply Chain Finance can support liquidity and more resilient trading relationships, but its value depends on the structure, cost, operating process and needs of the participants.

This course gives you a practical framework for evaluating those factors together.

Enrol in Supply Chain Finance and develop the knowledge to assess funding opportunities across the movement of goods, invoices and payments.