The recently formed international trading company had grown very quickly from a standing start and the business needed to fund significant further growth, ensuring it maintained sufficient working capital for the projected higher level of trading activity. An additional element to financing was that trading transactions were multi-currency, involving sterling, euros, and dollars, so there was a requirement to mitigate foreign exchange risk as well.  In the initial growth phase, the business had used standard accounting software coupled with a bespoke operational trading system to track bulk and container movements. It was therefore key to ensure these systems were integrated as comprehensively as possible with finance so that the stock and currency positions were recorded and monitored on an ongoing basis.  The forward plan and budget set out a near doubling of trading activity with increased stock levels and additional geographical spread, so it was key to bring in additional finance streams particularly to cover stock during the extended shipping period from the Far East to Europe.