Business funding with bad credit: it seems impossible. You need those vital funds for your business, but in order to get them, you need to improve your credit – and you can’t do anything about improving your credit when you don’t have the funds you need! Fortunately, your bad business credit doesn’t have to mean the end of your business. In fact, there are several options that can allow you to secure small business funding and move forward with the future of your business.
Look at Why Your Business Has Bad Credit
What’s causing your bad business credit? For many business owners, it’s all too easy to make excuses for why your credit rating isn’t as high as it could be. Unfortunately, those excuses can prevent you from seeing what your business really needs. Consider these common scenarios:
You’ve taken out too many loans, and they’re getting overwhelming.
You needed several loans to kick your business off the ground or to make it through a lean season. Now, even though you’re making a profit, you’re struggling to keep up with those loan payments – as a result, funds are tighter than you thought they would be.
You missed payments on loans or defaulted on payments in the past.
In order to keep a solid credit rating, your business has to keep up with its existing creditors – and that means making payments on time. If missed payments have negatively impacted your credit rating, you may struggle to get a bank loan or to convince creditors to offer you extensions based on your history.
You currently have weak cash flow.
It’s a slow season season for your business, and money just isn’t coming in the way you need it to. Unfortunately, this can be a high risk factor for many banks and other alternative lenders.
You just don’t have credit.
No credit can be almost as frustrating as poor credit, especially for business owners. If you’ve made it this far without needing to build your credit, you may have discovered abruptly that no one wants to give you a loan – especially if you’ve been turned down in the past.
You don’t have solid collateral for your loan.
Without anything to offer the bank as collateral, you’re unfortunately struggling to convince them to offer you a loan, even though your other financial concerns are all in line. Oftentimes cash and accounts receivable are not enough to pledge repayment – banks and other lenders can require fixed assets such as equipment, land, and buildings, and you need significant capital or loans to purchase those in the first place.
Consider Your Business Funding Needs
What type of funding do you need to take care of your business? As a business owner, you know there’s a big difference between the funds you need immediately and the funds you could use, but that you can do without for the time being. Carefully consider what funds you really need right now because the cost of capital for the different ways to fund your business can vary significantly.
Do you need immediate funds?
You’re short on funds, and you need to be able to make payroll or purchase vital materials for a current project. Without those immediate funds, you may not be able to deliver what your customers expect from you – but unfortunately, you don’t have the money coming in to cover those issues.
Do you need to lighten the burden of your current loans?
You actually do have the funds, but you have too many payments to make each month – and as a result, you feel like those loans are slowly bleeding your business dry since you don’t have enough left to cover operating costs.
Do you need long-term funding options?
If you need a larger amount with longer repayment terms, you may need to consider long-term funding options rather than a short-term loan to help you get by.
Evaluate What You Have
Consider what assets your business does have. You don’t want to have to sell all your existing assets for cash, which could be the difference between future success and failure for your business. Your company equipment and vehicles are important. They can, however, work as collateral for your loan, giving you more time to pay off those important bills.
Most importantly, however, take a look at your invoices. Some invoices are set to receive payment 30, 60, or even 90 days ahead. Often, having those funds in hand would make your business solvent again, especially if you’ve come straight out of a dry period into a very busy one, or if your suppliers are due payment before your customers are due to pay you. Unfortunately, you can’t force customers to pay their invoices before they are due, and you oftentimes have to agree to longer terms in order to secure new accounts.
So what is the best financing option if you don’t have enough assets required for collateral, are not sure if you need short or long-term funding, or don’t want additional loan payments?
Securing Financing
At Evergreen Funding, we offer a couple of key options that can help you secure the funds your business needs to make it through a financial tough spot. Consider these options:
Invoice Factoring
With invoice factoring, you’ll sell us your open invoices and we will fund your bank account with a percentage of the invoice total. We’ll collect on the invoices, and you’ll get the immediate funds you need to keep your business running smoothly. Even better, with invoice factoring, you won’t end up with additional debt – which means you won’t have more payments that you have to sweat about every month. Additionally, factoring can grow with your business which means that as you take on additional accounts and increase your sales, you can rest assured that you will have the funding in place in order to keep your operations running.
Debt Consolidation
Sometimes, you just need a little more time to pay off your existing debts. You have adequate cash flow, but it’s not handling the loans that got you started or saw you through lean times. Maybe you just can’t secure a business loan because you have too many loans that haven’t been paid off yet, or maybe your customer payments are taking longer to come in than anticipated.
When you need to consolidate your loans, Evergreen Funding can help. Rather than a loan consolidation which adds yet another loan to your balance sheet, we analyze your existing high-interest loans to comprise a plan to pay them down or even to completely pay them off by factoring your accounts receivable. This is a great strategy for those who have strong sales and great customers, but just need to help you get back on your feet or to make it easier to make payments when your existing strategies just aren’t working for you.
Do you need funding for your business in spite of bad credit? Evergreen Funding can help! At Evergreen Funding, we understand that sometimes, you end up with bad credit in spite of good ideas, solid business practices, and great plans for the future of your business. Contact us today to learn more about our funding opportunities for your business.