Questions, answered at length

No, and the distinction is legal rather than a matter of marketing. The transaction is a sale. A stated dollar amount of receivables you have not yet collected passes to us, we pay a discounted price for it today, and we recover the stated amount out of settlements as they land. Because nothing was lent, the agreement has no rate attached to it, no APR and no due date — those are features of debt, and this is not debt. Anyone selling an advance while calling it a loan either does not understand the product or is relying on you not to.

Multiply once and you are finished. An $80,000 advance at 1.28 means we buy $102,400 of your receivables, and the $22,400 sitting between those two figures is what the money costs you — all of it, with nothing else added anywhere. That gap does not respond to time. Deliver in six months or in eleven and it is still $22,400, which is precisely the opposite of how interest behaves on a balance you are carrying. You can work the total out on the back of an envelope before you sign, and the envelope will be right.

The floor is 550, and we publish it rather than making you find out after you have sent four months of statements. Below 550 we cannot fund an advance and we will say so on the first call. Above it, credit is one factor among several and seldom the deciding one — the bank account decides it. We do pull credit during underwriting, so nobody should be surprised when it happens.

The amount leaving your account shrinks the same week your sales do, without anyone having to arrange it. We take a percentage, not a set figure, so a month running at half your usual volume sends roughly half as much — and the calendar stretches to absorb the difference. No payment is missed in that scenario, because there was never a scheduled payment there to miss. Seasonal operators pick an advance for that reason above all others: the collection breathes with the trade. A genuine collapse in revenue rather than a dip is a different conversation, and one worth having with us early.

Often, yes, on one condition. Put the existing position on the application — who holds it, what is left on the balance, and what it draws each day. With that in front of an underwriter we can price a second position when the deposits are deep enough to carry both remittances comfortably. When they are not, the more useful conversation is usually about folding the open balance into a single position rather than layering a third one over it. Files that conceal a position get declined here, and concealing one is also how a merchant ends up with four separate debits hitting the same account on a Tuesday. Verification surfaces it every time, so there is nothing to be gained by leaving it off.

Two questions, so take them one at a time. Early payoff first: the figure we buy is fixed — $102,400 in the example on this site — and delivering it in five months rather than eight shortens the calendar without moving that number a dollar. A discount for early delivery is something you negotiate into the paperwork at the outset. Ask for it before signature, because it cannot be bolted on later. Renewals run the other way. Once roughly two thirds of the way through, with nothing bounced and no gaps in the collection, we will underwrite a fresh file against your current statements. That is a new decision on new numbers rather than an entitlement, and it turns on what the account looks like that week.

For an advance, a line of credit or an equipment deal: four months of business bank statements downloaded as full PDFs, a driver’s license or passport for the signer, a voided check drawn on the business account, and whichever filing proves the entity exists — usually the EIN letter or the articles. That is the whole list and nothing else gets asked for. A term loan above $250,000 adds a current profit-and-loss statement. SBA sits in a category of its own: three years of returns, interim financials, a debt schedule and a written plan, which is a fair part of why it runs 30 to 90 days.

For an advance: a complete file sent in the morning is usually decided within two hours and funded 24 to 48 hours after signing. A line of credit or equipment deal runs one to three business days. An SBA loan takes 30 to 90 days and no amount of pushing changes that. The delays we actually see are almost always the same two: statements sent as photographs, and a position that surfaces at verification rather than at application.

Ask in the first two minutes of the first call and you will get a yes or a no on the spot, rather than after assembling four months of paperwork. The declined list is short: gambling, adult entertainment, firearms and ammunition, cannabis, debt settlement, credit repair, and any activity a federal or state statute makes illegal. Outside that list we are open, and deliberately so — towing, staffing agencies, seasonal contracting and independent auto shops are all normal files here, and all of them are trades a bank branch will often wave off without reading the account.

Possibly, and it is better to know that now than later. An advance does not appear on your consumer credit report as a loan, but we file a UCC-1 against your receivables and that filing sits on the public record where any future underwriter will find it. Some banks read an open position as a reason to stop reading. What helps is a clean delivery record: it counts with us when you come back for a renewal, and it counts with whoever picks up the file after us.

There are two mechanisms, and your agreement names the one that applies to you. A processor split withholds our share at source: the batch is divided before the remainder of the day’s card sales reaches your account, so nothing has to leave once the money is yours. An ACH debit suits a business whose revenue arrives as a mix of cash, checks and transfers — an agreed amount is drawn from the business account on each banking day, reconciled against what actually came in. Method, percentage and account are all written down in front of you before signature. Neither arrangement lets us take anything beyond the share you agreed to.

Call while you can still see it coming, not once it has arrived. Losing a lease, switching processors, a large customer that stops ordering, a season that turns three weeks early — each of those is workable while the account is still performing and close to impossible once it is not. The room to restructure tends to vanish exactly when it is needed. Your funding manager is the person to reach: the direct number is printed on your agreement, and contact@premier-advance.com lands on the same desk. We would far rather hear from you a month early than a week late.