Most businesses will need a little financial helping hand with managing their cash-flow and obtaining funding for their future growth. However, when it comes to securing a loan with the bank, many small businesses struggle to qualify. If you’ve been rejected by the banks in the past, or you’re concerned that your business won’t qualify for a bank loan, a merchant cash advance could just be the perfect solution.
Merchant cash advance: 7 ways it could help your business
A merchant cash advance loan is an alternative funding solution, offered on an entirely interest free basis. You can obtain up to £500,000 in unsecured working capital, which you then repay simply using a small percentage of your future customer card sales. Favoured by UK SMEs for its unique flexibility, here’s how a merchant cash advance could benefit your business:
1. Opportunities to invest in additional marketing
With the funding from a merchant cash advance, the opportunity to run a new marketing campaign, and in turn attract new customers fast becomes a financial reality. A good and high-quality advertisement will help to introduce the business to a large population of people within a short period of time. Advertising is one of the major keys to the survival of a new business, product or service.
2. Solve cash-flow issues quickly
A prompt payment record will attract more preferable buying terms from new suppliers and will encourage more companies to compete for your business. However, sometimes it can be difficult to keep payments speedy if funds are running low, but the quick influx of money that a cash advance offers you should allow you to easily pay off any outstanding payments that you owe, helping you to maintain and build up your good reputation.
3. A chance to rebrand, renovate or refurbish
An up to date brand image is key to staying relevant and successful in business world. Extra funding from a cash advance can give you the chance to have your logo or website reworked, or for your shop to be redecorated; investments in business which you might otherwise not have been able to afford.
4. Fast access to funding
One of the brilliant benefits of a merchant cash advance is its speediness. Unlike a traditional bank loan, funds from a cash advance can be in your bank account within a matter of hours.
A traditional bank loan, on the other land, can take weeks (sometimes even months) to reach you, which could leave your business struggling to stay afloat in the meantime. If a key piece of machinery suddenly breaks down, for example, or there is a problem with your plumbing that needs resolving immediately, there is no time to be sat waiting around.
5. Paperless & painless application process
A merchant cash advance can easily be applied for online, in the space of just a few minutes. There is no need for tedious phone calls, meetings at the bank or complicated paperwork to be filled out; the process is quick and painless, making it a great option for any busy business owners. Better still, there’s no need to provide a business plan to qualify.
6. High approval rates
To qualify for a merchant cash advance, a perfect credit score is not necessary. Approval is subject to your business’s performance, not your credit score. You qualify based on the amount of card transactions your business processes each month. So, as long as your customer card transactions are generating a decent amount of revenue, your application will likely be accepted.
7. Flexible repayments
The flexible nature of the cash advance repayment system should mean that your business is never subject to undue financial strain, as can sometimes be the case with more traditional types of business loans. There are no fixed repayment periods. As you only repay a pre-agreed percentage of your customer card payments, the amount you pay back always remains perfectly in sync with your businesses cash-flow. So, if business is a little slow one day, the amount you repay is also nicely reduced.
Overall…
There are numerous great reasons to get a merchant cash advance; the benefits and opportunities that it can offer to you as a business owner are plentiful, allowing for both you and your business to grow and develop even when problems with your financial resources and cash-flow crop up.