How a file moves, from the first entry to the funds.
Written out at length, because the honest version of this is more useful than a diagram with three arrows in it.
1. You enter the business
Incorporation and EIN come first, because between them they settle what is being looked at. Then contact details, the trade itself, the length of the record, the sum sought, and particulars of whoever signs. Five minutes or so, provided nothing has to be looked up.
Every entry is kept the moment it is made. Closing the tab loses nothing, and the link that brought you in brings you back to the same file.
2. You sign the application
The last page shows the record back to you and asks for a signature. That signature authorises us to assess the file and to approach funding partners with it. It is not an agreement to take funding, and it does not commit the business to anything.
3. You furnish three months of statements
PDFs, downloaded from your bank's own site. Not screenshots, not photographs of a screen, and not a spreadsheet you exported: the PDF carries the detail the assessment reads. Up to ten files, 25MB each.
This is the step files wait on. An application entered on Monday with statements attached on Monday is usually answered before an application entered on Friday with statements promised for next week.
4. The file is read
Deposits are totalled by month, the pattern is looked at, anything already being repaid is taken into account, and the file is matched against the funding partners most likely to take it. This is the part that happens away from you, and it is usually same-day once the statements are in.
5. Terms are put to you
The amount, the total repayable, the instalment and the number of instalments. A person calls to walk through them. Ask about anything that does not read cleanly at that point; changing the shape of an offer before it is signed is ordinary, and after it is signed is not.
6. Agreements are signed
Documents come by email. Read them. They restate the same four figures you were told on the phone, and if they do not, stop and call before signing.
7. Funds arrive
Usually into the same account the statements came from, commonly within a business day of the signed agreements clearing. Repayment starts on the schedule written in the agreement.
If the answer is no
You are told, and you are told why. Sometimes the reason is fixable - a second account the deposits actually run through, a month of statements that did not upload, an amount pitched above what the record supports. If it is fixable, it is worth fixing and coming back.