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What an advance underwriter actually looks at
Not your business plan and usually not your financial statements. Your bank statements, read line by line for how money moves.
Drafted with AI assistance. Not yet independently checked. Nobody has verified the claims on this page against a source, so treat the figures and legal points as a starting point rather than as settled, and confirm anything you are about to act on. How we check things.
What does a merchant cash advance underwriter actually look at?
The core of the file is three to six months of business bank statements, read for average daily balance, deposit count and consistency, negative or NSF days, and any recurring debits that look like other financing. Time in business, industry, and a credit check on the owner act mainly as screens. Financial statements, projections and tax returns are often not requested at all, which is why decisions are fast and why the offer is sized to your deposits.
The bank statements do most of the work
Three to six months, all pages, for every account receipts land in. An underwriter is reading for:
What else goes into the file
- Time in business and entity details, from your filings and the application.
- Industry. Most funders maintain restricted lists, and some sectors are declined outright regardless of the numbers.
- Card processing statements, where the deal is card-based, to confirm settlement volume.
- A credit check on the owner. Often a screen rather than a pricing input. Ask whether the pull is soft or hard before you authorise it.
- Public records — UCC filings, judgments, tax liens.
- Landlord and lease information for location-dependent businesses.
- Occasionally a short call to confirm the business is trading, or a site check.
What is often not requested
Full financial statements. Projections. Tax returns. A business plan. Accounts receivable ageing. That absence is the reason a decision can come the same day, and it is also the reason the offer is sized against deposits rather than against profit — nobody has looked at whether you make money, only at whether money moves through the account.
Which means the underwrite does not answer the question you most need answered: can this business afford this obligation? You have to answer that yourself.
How the number gets sized
The offer is not a judgment about your business. It is a fraction of an adjusted deposit figure, and you can compute the input yourself.
Whatever multiple a given funder applies is then applied to that number, not to your gross. At an illustrative 80% of one month's adjusted deposits the offer is about $136,000; at 50% it is about $85,000. The multiple varies by funder, by industry and by how many positions you already carry, and it is not published anywhere.
Two things follow. The strip is why an offer comes in below what your statements appear to support — and why moving money between your own accounts to make deposits look larger does not work, it just makes the file look managed. And it is why a single unusual deposit does not help: it comes straight out.
The stips, and why they arrive
An approval is usually conditional on stipulations — the documents requested between offer and funding. The common ones, and what each is actually for:
- A driver's licence and a voided cheque. Identity, and the account the debit will hit.
- A recent month's statements, because the file has aged since submission.
- Proof of ownership of the premises, or the lease. Location stability.
- Landlord verification. That you are there and current.
- A bank login or read-only connection, to confirm the statements match live balances.
- Card processing statements, where the deal is split-funded.
- An explanation for any large or irregular deposit the strip flagged.
Have these in one folder before you apply. Stips are where deals die of delay rather than of credit, and every day the file sits is a day the statements get staler.
How positions get counted
"How many positions do you have" is the question the whole file turns on, and the funder's count may not match yours.
They count what they can see: recurring debits in the statements, UCC filings on the index, and anything you disclose. A repaid advance whose UCC was never terminated can be counted as live. A merchant services reserve or an equipment payment can be misread as an advance. A funder's deposit into your account, matched by a debit, is read as a position regardless of what you call it.
The fix is a one-page schedule you hand over at application: every obligation, the funder, the current balance, the payment amount and frequency, and the expected end date, with the terminated UCCs noted. It takes twenty minutes, it pre-empts the questions, and it stops an underwriter resolving an ambiguity against you.
What it means for how you apply
- Send complete statements, every page, for every account. Gaps get filled with pessimism.
- Fill in the application yourself and keep a copy of exactly what was submitted, including anything a broker sent on your behalf. You are personally standing behind its accuracy in most deals.
- Disclose existing positions. They will be found in the statements anyway, and the discrepancy is worse than the position.
- Apply after a strong month, not a weak one. The trailing three months set the offer.
- Fix the NSF pattern first if you can. A clean month of statements changes the file more than anything you can say in a call.
Where this applies
Related questions
What does a merchant cash advance underwriter actually look at?
The core of the file is three to six months of business bank statements, read for average daily balance, deposit count and consistency, negative or NSF days, and any recurring debits that look like other financing. Time in business, industry, and a credit check on the owner act mainly as screens. Financial statements, projections and tax returns are often not requested at all, which is why decisions are fast and why the offer is sized to your deposits.
Which funding products does this apply to?
Merchant Cash Advance. Each has its own page listing the funders in this directory that offer it and what each one publishes about its terms.
Are the figures here quotes?
No. Every worked example is labelled illustrative and exists to show the arithmetic. What a particular lender charges is on that lender's page, where it publishes it at all.
Who writes this?
The Find Me Funders research desk. Some drafting is AI-assisted, and every page that is says so at the top, including whether a person has checked its claims yet.
How do I know a figure here is right?
Where a page carries the green notice, its claims were checked against the sources listed at the end and a reviewer is named. Where it carries the amber one, nobody has verified it yet and you should confirm anything you plan to act on.
Are the examples real deals?
No. Every worked example is labelled illustrative and exists to show the arithmetic. What any particular lender charges is on that lender's page, where it publishes it.
Why do you never say what a typical rate is?
Because we cannot source it. A market average assembled from lenders who do not publish prices is a guess with a decimal point on it. Where a lender publishes a figure, we show that figure and say where it came from.
Is this financial or legal advice?
No. It is general information about how these products work. Outcomes depend on your contract and your state, and a lawyer or accountant licensed where you are is the person to ask about your situation.
Can I reuse this content?
Quote a paragraph with a link back. Do not republish whole articles.