From the enquiry to the money landing

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.