System and Method for Assisting Vendors

A vendor assistance system for facilitating payment to a vendor for products or services purchased by a governmental entity wherein the governmental entity owes a penalty interest if late payment is made to the vendor wherein a third party pays the vendor the invoiced amount owing to the vendor in exchange for receiving the penalty interest from the governmental entity, said system comprising:

• a computer network;
• an invoice having a base invoice amount and submitted to the governmental entity via said computer network;
• a software application operated by the third party and in communication with the governmental entity through the computer network wherein the software application has a new vendor registration module, a new state voucher module, a create an assignment agreement module, a signed agreement processing module, a vendor payment module and a governmental entity receivables module for tracking payments owed by the governmental entity including interest penalty payments assigned by the vendor to the third party;
• an amount of penalty funds calculated by the governmental entity receivables module from said base invoice amount when said invoice is not paid in a timely manner;
• a loan amount obtained by the third party from a lender wherein at least a portion or the loan amount is paid to the vendor in exchange for the vendor's agreement to assign rights to penalty funds to the third party;
• an application submitted to the third party via said software application for enrolling the vendor in the vendor assistance system based on said invoice;
• wherein the software application identifies at least one installment disbursed from the governmental entity and received by the third party via said computer network;
• wherein at least one payment is disbursed from the third party and received by the vendor thereby allowing the vendor to receive 100% of said base invoice amount;
• and
• wherein the third party receives the penalty funds from the governmental entity.