FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Straight answers about exploring business financing, completing your application, reviewing available options, and what to expect along the way. Every question links, so you can send the answer to a partner or bookkeeper.
The basics
Start here
How does ClickFundBiz work?
ClickFundBiz gives business owners one streamlined way to explore commercial financing options. You provide information about your business and funding needs, and where appropriate, we work with participating financing providers to identify options that may fit your business. Available financing is subject to the requirements, approval and terms of the applicable financing provider.
Who provides the financing?
Financing is provided by participating financing providers. Each provider independently evaluates applications and determines whether to offer financing, along with the applicable amount, pricing, fees, terms and conditions.
What types of business financing can I explore?
Depending on your business profile and financing needs, options may include working capital, business term financing, business lines of credit, equipment financing, invoice or receivables financing, SBA-related financing and other commercial financing products. Options vary by business and participating provider.
How much can I apply for?
The amount you can request depends on factors such as your business revenue, time in business, financing purpose, financial profile and the requirements of the applicable financing provider.
Does applying guarantee approval?
No. Submitting an application does not guarantee approval. Financing decisions are made by the applicable financing provider based on its eligibility requirements and underwriting process.
Does applying guarantee funding?
No. Financing availability, approval, amount, pricing, terms and funding are determined by the applicable financing provider. ClickFundBiz does not guarantee that financing will be offered or funded.
The process
Applying, documents and options
What information will I need?
We'll ask for information about your business, ownership, revenue, financing needs and financial profile. The exact information required may vary depending on the financing options being considered.
What documents may I need?
Depending on your business and financing request, you may be asked for documents such as business bank statements, tax returns, financial statements, identification, existing financing information, invoices, equipment quotes or other supporting documentation. We only ask for documents that are relevant to your application and the applicable provider's requirements.
Are my documents secure?
ClickFundBiz is designed to handle application information and documents through secure systems. Access to sensitive information is limited to authorized personnel and applicable service providers.
Will applying affect my credit?
Credit inquiry practices can vary by financing provider and product. Depending on the provider and stage of the application, a soft or hard credit inquiry may be used. Any required authorization and applicable disclosures will be provided before the relevant credit inquiry.
How will financing options be presented?
When financing providers return available options, ClickFundBiz presents the applicable provider, financing amount, payment information, pricing or factor information, fees, term and other applicable details so you can review the option.
Do I have to accept an offer?
No. Receiving a financing option does not require you to accept it. You can review the applicable terms and decide whether you want to move forward.
How fast can I receive funding?
Funding timelines vary by provider, financing product, application, documentation and underwriting requirements. Some options may move quickly, while others may require additional review.
Transparency
Good to know
Does ClickFundBiz charge a fee?
ClickFundBiz may receive compensation from participating financing providers when a transaction is completed. Any required compensation or fee disclosures will be provided as applicable.
Is ClickFundBiz a lender?
ClickFundBiz operates as a commercial financing broker/intermediary. We help facilitate connections between businesses and participating financing providers. Financing is provided by the applicable financing provider, which independently makes its financing decisions and establishes the applicable terms.
Is ClickFundBiz available in every state?
Availability can vary by state, financing product, provider and applicable requirements. Your eligibility will depend on where your business is located and the financing options available through participating providers.
Getting funded
Qualifying and getting approved
My business is only a few months old. Can I get funding?
Sometimes, though the options narrow sharply under six months and the pricing reflects that. Most revenue-based providers want a deposit history they can read, and a short history gives them less to read, so the files that do get approved tend to be smaller and more expensive. Some providers will look at three or four months of steady deposits, and equipment financing sometimes works earlier because the asset carries part of the risk. Waiting a few months while your statements build is often the cheaper path. Funding under six months in business covers what is realistic, and time in business requirements explains why the clock matters so much.
Can I get funded with bad credit?
Often yes, because revenue-based products weigh your bank activity more heavily than your credit score, but weaker credit usually shows up as a higher cost rather than a flat no. Providers price risk, and a score they consider low is one input among several: deposits, average daily balance, negative days, existing positions and industry all move the number too. What credit rarely does in this corner of the market is disqualify you on its own. Getting an MCA with bad credit explains how the tradeoff usually works, and business funding with a 500 credit score is specific about what tends to be realistic at the low end.
Do I need collateral?
Not for most working capital products. Advances, revenue-based financing and many short-term loans are underwritten against your cash flow rather than a specific asset, which is a large part of why they fund quickly. That does not mean nothing is pledged. Most agreements include a personal guarantee, and many providers file a UCC lien against your business assets, which is a claim rather than a seizure but still affects what the next provider will do. Equipment financing is the exception, since the equipment itself secures the deal. Business funding without collateral covers the tradeoffs, and what a personal guarantee commits you to is worth reading before you sign anything.
How fast can I actually get funded?
Short-term products like a merchant cash advance can move in one to three business days once a complete file is in front of an underwriter, while bank and SBA financing is usually measured in weeks. The variable that decides your timeline is rarely the provider's speed. It is how long you take to send clean documents, and whether anything in the file needs a second look. Advances and revenue-based products are quick because they underwrite bank activity rather than collateral. How fast a merchant cash advance really funds walks through each stage, and if the deadline is this week, emergency funding in 24 hours is honest about what can and cannot move that fast.
How much funding can I actually get?
For revenue-based financing, most providers size an offer against your monthly deposits, so the honest answer starts with your bank statements rather than a number you pick. A common frame is a share of one month's revenue, adjusted for how steady those deposits look, how long you have been in business, and what other financing is already being repaid. Asking for far more than the file supports slows everything down and can cost you the approval. The how much can I get estimator produces a labeled estimate from a few inputs, and why lenders want your bank statements explains what the file is really being read for.
What do I need to qualify for business funding?
Most revenue-based products start from three things: months in business, consistent revenue deposited into a business bank account, and a bank statement history a provider can read. Credit matters, though it usually carries less weight here than it does at a bank. Every provider sets its own thresholds and makes its own decision, so a file that is thin for one is ordinary for another, and nobody can tell you in advance what any provider will do with yours. Merchant cash advance requirements lists what is typically asked for, time in business requirements covers the age question, and the funding estimator gives you a clearly labeled estimate before you apply anywhere.
Cost and terms
What it costs and how it is priced
Do I have to sign a personal guarantee?
For most small business financing, yes. A personal guarantee makes the owner personally responsible for the balance if the business cannot pay, which is how providers get comfortable financing a company whose assets would not cover the deal. Some agreements use a narrower performance guarantee that applies only if you misrepresent the business or interfere with repayment, and the difference between the two versions is worth reading closely rather than assuming. Watch for a confession of judgment sitting next to it, which is a separate and much heavier clause. What a personal guarantee really commits you to explains both, and how to read a term sheet shows where they hide.
How do I compare two offers that are structured differently?
Convert both to the same three numbers: total dollars repaid, dollars actually received after deductions, and dollars leaving your account each week. An offer quoted as a factor rate and an offer quoted as an annual rate cannot be compared as written, and the shorter deal often looks cheaper on total cost while hitting cash flow much harder. Once both are in the same units the cheaper one is usually obvious, and the one your business can comfortably carry may be the other one. How to compare funding offers walks the method, and the offer comparison tool normalizes the offers you already have in front of you.
How do I know if an offer is too expensive?
Compare the total cost against what the money is going to do, not against a benchmark rate you saw somewhere. Financing that carries a large payback can still be sound if it fills a real order or replaces the equipment that earns your revenue, and cheap financing is a bad deal when it funds something that returns nothing. The second test is the payment: if the schedule only works in an above-average month, the real cost is higher than the paperwork says. Is this funding offer too expensive lays out the framework, and the payment affordability checker puts the schedule against your own cash flow.
What fees should I expect?
Ask for the deductions in writing before you sign, because the common ones come out of your funding rather than arriving later as a bill. Origination or underwriting fees, administrative or program fees, wire or ACH fees, and in some deals a broker or professional service fee are all ordinary line items when they are disclosed in advance. What is not ordinary is a deduction that appears for the first time on funding day. The test is simple: the number you were told you would receive should match the number that hits your account. The fees nobody explains itemizes each one, and questions to ask before signing turns it into a script you can read down the phone.
What is a factor rate, and is it the same as interest?
A factor rate is a multiplier that sets your total payback, and it is not an interest rate. Suppose an advance of $50,000 carries a factor of 1.35. In that invented example you repay $67,500 in total, and that figure does not shrink because the balance goes down or because you finish early. Interest accrues on a declining balance, while a factor is fixed at signing. That single difference is why a factor that looks small next to a bank rate can be far more expensive in practice. Factor rates explained works through the math, and the MCA cost calculator turns a factor into real payback numbers.
What is this actually going to cost me?
The only cost number that means anything is total dollars out the door: the payback amount plus every fee deducted at funding, measured against the amount that actually lands in your account. Rates, factors and payment sizes are all partial views of that one figure. Ask any provider for the funded amount, the total payback, the payment amount and frequency, the term, and an itemized list of deductions, then do the subtraction yourself. The true cost of an MCA, with real math shows the calculation end to end, and the MCA cost calculator runs it on the numbers from your own paperwork.
Why won't anyone quote me a rate before I apply?
Because the price is set in underwriting, and until a provider has read your bank statements there is nothing to price. Cost depends on revenue and its consistency, average daily balance, time in business, industry, existing positions and, for some products, credit. A firm rate quoted before any of that is known was not calculated from your file, it was chosen for its effect on you. What can honestly be explained upfront is how each product's cost is structured, which inputs drive it, and every fee category that could appear at closing. Why we will not quote a rate before seeing your file covers the whole mechanism, including how to use the question as a test of anyone you are considering.
Documents
Paperwork and underwriting
Do negative days in my bank account kill my application?
Not automatically, but they are one of the first things an underwriter counts. A handful of negative days across three months is common and usually survivable. A pattern of them, especially clustered near month end or paired with bounced payments, reads as a business that cannot cover its own obligations, and it shows up in the pricing before it shows up in a decline. What helps is context a provider can verify, plus a few clean weeks before applying when the deadline allows it. Negative days and business funding explains how they are counted, and getting funded with a negative balance handles the harder version of the question.
Does applying hurt my credit score?
It depends on whether the provider runs a soft or a hard inquiry, and at what stage of the process. Many revenue-based providers start with a soft pull, which does not affect your score, and run a hard inquiry only when a deal is moving toward closing. Hard inquiries do leave a mark, and several of them in a short window can add up, which is a good reason not to spray applications across a dozen sites in one afternoon. Any required authorization and disclosure comes before the inquiry. Does applying hurt your credit covers the practical effect, and soft pull versus hard pull explains which is which.
I have a tax lien. Can I still get funded?
Often yes, though a lien narrows the field of providers and usually raises the cost. Providers care less about the existence of a lien than about whether it is being handled: an approved payment plan with the taxing authority, paid on time and documented, changes the conversation considerably. Size matters too, since a lien large enough to threaten the business is a different risk from a small one being paid down on schedule. Judgments work much the same way. Disclose it upfront, because it will surface in underwriting anyway and a surprise costs you credibility. Funding with tax liens and judgments covers what providers typically want to see.
What documents do funders actually ask for?
The standard opening request is three to six months of business bank statements, a completed application, and identification. From there it depends on the product and the size: tax returns, a profit and loss statement, a balance sheet, an accounts receivable aging, an equipment quote, a voided check, or proof of ownership. Providers call the follow-up items stips, and deals stall on stips far more often than they stall on the decision itself. Having them ready is the fastest part of the process you actually control. The business funding document checklist lists them by product, and the document readiness checker tells you what is missing before you apply.
Why does everyone want my bank statements?
Because for revenue-based financing the statements are the underwriting. They show what a tax return cannot: how much revenue actually arrived, how steady the deposits were, what your balance looked like on an average day, how many days went negative, whether payments bounced, and whether another provider is already drawing a daily payment. That picture drives both the decision and the price. It is also why tidying up the account before you apply is worth more than any explanation you attach to the file. Why lenders want your bank statements covers what underwriters read line by line, and average daily balance explains the number that surprises owners most.
Why was my application declined?
Most declines trace to a short list: not enough time in business, revenue below that provider's floor, deposits too irregular to underwrite, negative days and returned payments, an existing advance already taking a daily payment, an open tax lien or judgment, or an industry the provider avoids. A decline is one provider's answer to one file on one day, and providers differ enough that another may read the same file differently. What does not help is applying everywhere at once. Why funding applications get declined covers each reason, and what to do after a denial is about the thirty days after a no.
Repayment
Paying it back
Can I take a second advance while I still owe on the first?
Physically yes, and it is one of the most reliable ways businesses get into trouble. A second position provider is repaid after the first, prices that risk accordingly, and now two debits hit the same account every day. Many first position agreements also prohibit additional financing, so stacking can put you in breach of a contract you already signed. There are narrow cases where a second position is the right call, and far more where the real problem is that the first deal was too large for the business. MCA stacking explained covers the mechanics, and second position advances is specific about when they make sense.
Do I save money if I pay it off early?
With a factor-rate advance, usually not by default. The payback is fixed at signing, so finishing early means paying the same total in less time, which raises the effective cost rather than lowering it. Some providers offer an early payoff discount or a prepayment schedule, but it is a negotiated term rather than a right, so ask for it in writing before you sign rather than after. Interest-bearing term loans behave differently, since interest stops accruing once the balance is gone. Factor rates explained covers why the two products differ, and the true cost of an MCA shows what early payoff does to the math.
How do I know whether I can afford the payment?
Run the payment against your slowest recent month, not your average, and look at what is left after payroll, rent, suppliers and taxes. A daily debit interacts with cash flow very differently from a monthly one: the same total cost can be comfortable on a weekly schedule and impossible on a daily one, purely because of when the money leaves. If the plan only works when revenue grows right after funding, the payment is being underwritten by optimism. The cash flow forecast template builds the view you need, and the payment affordability checker does the arithmetic on your own numbers.
How do the payments actually come out of my account?
For most advances and short-term products, by automatic ACH debit on a fixed schedule, daily on business days or weekly, beginning within a few days of funding. Some card-based advances instead take a set share of your daily card settlement, which flexes with volume. The consequence worth planning around is that repayment starts immediately and comes out before you decide what else to pay that week, so the payment has to fit your worst week rather than your average one. Daily versus weekly remittance compares the two schedules, and the payment affordability checker tests a schedule against your own numbers.
What happens if I miss a payment?
Expect the debit to be retried, a fee, and a phone call, usually fast. What matters more is what comes next: many agreements treat repeated failed debits as a default, which can make the full balance due, bring the personal guarantee into play, or trigger action on a UCC filing. Providers vary widely in how they handle a genuine slow patch, and the ones worth working with will talk before it becomes a default. Calling first is almost always better than letting a debit fail. What to do when you cannot make MCA payments lays out the options in order, from reconciliation to restructuring.
Working with a broker
How we are paid and what we do
How do I know a funder is legitimate?
Judge the paperwork and the pressure, not the pitch. Legitimate providers put the funded amount, total payback, payment size and frequency, term and every fee in writing before you sign, and they let you read it without a countdown. The warning signs cluster together: an upfront fee to release funds, a signature demanded today, a reconciliation clause that never actually reconciles, a confession of judgment, or a refusal to name the funding entity in writing. Verify the entity itself, and read the agreement rather than the term sheet summary. Predatory funder warning signs is the full list, and red flags in cash advance agreements covers the clauses.
How does a broker get paid on my deal?
In most arrangements the financing provider pays the broker a commission when a deal closes, calculated on the amount funded, and in some structures that commission rises with the rate you accept. That is the part worth understanding, because compensation built into your pricing means the number is not always as fixed as it sounds, and the incentives lean toward larger and faster deals. ClickFundBiz is compensated in connection with financing we arrange, in most cases by the financing provider, and any fee payable by you would be disclosed to you in writing before you became obligated to pay it. How MCA brokers get paid explains buy rates, spreads and points, and gives you the questions to ask any broker, including us.
Why am I suddenly getting calls from twenty different lenders?
Because your information became a lead, and leads get resold. It usually starts with a form on an aggregator site, a submission passed along without your authorization, or a UCC filing, which is public record and routinely mined by shops looking for businesses that already took an advance. The volume is not evidence that anyone wants to help you. It is evidence your file is circulating. Ask any caller where they got your number, and be careful about sending statements to whoever rings. Backdooring covers the file-sharing side, what a UCC lien means covers the public-record side, and predatory funder warning signs covers the callers themselves.
Why use a broker instead of going straight to a funder?
A broker's value is reach and presentation: one file in front of several providers at once, submitted the way each one wants to see it, by someone who knows which providers work with your industry and file profile. Going direct is perfectly reasonable, especially if you already have a bank relationship or one provider you trust. What going direct does not automatically do is make the money cheaper, since a provider dealing with you directly does not necessarily pass along what it saved. The honest comparison is the total cost of the best deal each path actually produces. Broker versus direct funder works through both sides of that.
Will my application get shopped around to a dozen funders?
It should go only where you authorized it to go, and you are entitled to ask for that list by name. Submitting one file to a few well-matched providers is normal, and it is most of what a broker actually does. Sending it to everyone, or passing it to parties you never approved, is a different thing, and in this industry it has a name: backdooring. The usual tell is your phone. What backdooring is and how to protect your file explains how it happens, and questions to ask before signing includes the one that matters here, which is where your file is going, by name.
Will you ever tell me not to take the money?
Yes, and the situations where it happens are predictable: when the payment only works in a good month, when the money would paper over a problem financing cannot fix, when a cheaper product would do the same job, or when waiting a few weeks to clean up the file would change the pricing materially. We are compensated when financing we arrange funds, so that answer runs against our own incentive, which is exactly why it is worth saying plainly rather than leaving you to discover it. When we tell clients not to borrow gives real examples, and improving cash flow without borrowing covers the alternatives worth trying first.
After funding
Renewals, stacking and what comes next
How do I avoid needing emergency funding again?
Get far enough ahead of the gap that you are choosing financing instead of reacting to it. In practice that means a rolling thirteen week cash forecast, invoicing and collecting faster, separating business and personal accounts so the numbers stay readable, and knowing your slow months before they arrive. Owners who borrow from a forecast tend to get better options than owners who borrow from a deadline, because a file prepared in advance reads better and there is time to compare. Improving cash flow without borrowing covers the levers, the cash flow forecast template builds the view, and the cash flow gap calculator sizes the shortfall.
How much of the money actually hits my account?
The funded amount minus every deduction taken at closing, which is why the approval number and the deposit number are rarely the same. Origination, administrative, wire and any disclosed broker fees usually come out of the disbursement rather than being billed later, and if you are refinancing, the payoff of an existing balance comes out too. Ask for the net figure in writing before you sign, then check the deposit against it. A gap you were never told about is worth a phone call before the first payment, not after. The fees nobody explains itemizes what typically comes out on funding day.
My funder is offering a renewal. Should I take it?
Evaluate it as a brand new deal, because that is what it is. The common structure folds your remaining balance into a new advance and applies a new factor to the whole amount, which means paying a factor a second time on money that already carried one. Renewals are the most profitable call in this industry, and the timing of the offer, usually around the halfway point of your current deal, is not a coincidence. Sometimes a renewal genuinely fits the business. Run the numbers before deciding. MCA renewals and when to refinance shows how to evaluate one, and the MCA cost calculator prices it from scratch.
What happens if my revenue drops after I take the money?
The debit usually keeps coming at the same size, which is the risk that makes a fixed daily or weekly payment harder than it looks on paper. Some agreements include a reconciliation provision that lets you request an adjustment when revenue falls, and how willingly a provider honors that is one of the real differences between them. Call before a payment fails rather than after, with statements ready, because a documented request is treated very differently from a bounced debit. What to do when you cannot make MCA payments covers the options, and surviving a slow season covers the cash flow side of the same problem.
Will this build my business credit?
Often not, because many revenue-based providers do not report repayment to the commercial credit bureaus, so paying an advance off perfectly can leave no trace on your business credit file. What may show up instead is a UCC filing, which is a matter of public record and tells the next provider that a position already exists. If building credit is one of your goals, ask each provider directly whether it reports and to which bureaus, then build deliberately through vendor accounts and reporting products rather than hoping. How to build business credit covers what actually moves the file, and what a UCC lien means explains the filing.
Want more depth than a paragraph? The blog covers costs, approvals and cash flow in full articles, and the glossary defines every term you will meet in a funding agreement.
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