Which funding products does this apply to?

Merchant Cash Advance, Working Capital, Term Loan, Business Line of Credit, SBA Loan. 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.

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 A market average assembled from lenders who do not publish prices is a guess with a decimal point on it.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.

What can't I fix before I apply, and how do I plan around it?

Five inputs are fixed on the day you submit. Knowing which ones stops you spending a quarter on something that was never going to move.

By Find Me Funders research desk Updated 14 September 2026 1092 words 5 min read

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 can't I fix before I apply, and how do I plan around it?

Five things are effectively fixed: time in business, which moves at one month per month; a default, judgment, lien or bankruptcy already on the record, which ages out on a retention schedule rather than on your effort; the repayment schedule of existing fixed-total obligations, which runs to its own arithmetic; your filed tax returns, which are annual; and your industry, where an exclusion list applies. The plan around them is the same in each case: find out the specific date or condition that changes the position, choose products whose screens you already pass, disclose the unfixable item yourself with evidence attached, and stop spending effort on the ones that were never going to move.

There are five. Everything else on a funding file responds to effort inside a quarter or two. These do not, and the most common planning error is spending six months on one of them.

1. Time in business

One month per month. No exceptions, and no workaround that survives contact with underwriting.

It matters because many funders operate it as a hard screen — a stated minimum that a file either meets or does not, applied before anyone reads the statements. A business at fourteen months with clean banking, a real balance and a commercial file will still fail a twenty-four-month screen.

The things that do not work:buying an aged shelf entity and applying on its formation date, which fails the moment anyone compares the entity's registration to its first tax return or its first bank statement. Applying in the name of a different, older entity you control, which is a misrepresentation on the application you signed. Restarting the clock by reincorporating, which resets it backwards, not forwards.

Planning around it:find out the actual date. Your formation date on the state register, your first business bank statement, and your first filed return each carry a date, and different funders measure from different ones. Then work out which screens you already pass today, and target those. Revenue-based and bank-statement products typically use the shortest minimums; bank and SBA credit use the longest. Diarise the date you cross the next threshold and plan the application for the month after, not the month before.

2. A default, judgment, lien or bankruptcy already on the record

Satisfying it changes the status from open to satisfied, and that is worth doing because an open judgment reads far worse than a satisfied one. What it does not do is remove the record, which ages off on the bureau's retention schedule.

Planning around it:get the satisfaction or release documented — a filed satisfaction of judgment, a lien release, a discharge order — and carry it with your application package. Disclose it in your own words, first, with the document attached and a one-paragraph account of what happened, what changed and when. A funder who reads your version with evidence treats it as a known item. One who finds it in a report treats it as a discovery, and discoveries raise the question of what else was not mentioned.

Then check which products screen it out absolutely and which price for it, and stop applying to the first group.

3. The repayment schedule of existing fixed-total obligations

Illustrative only —a purchase-of-receivables product with a purchased amount of 67,500 and a daily debit of 562.50 has 120 payments in it. At 21.67 banking days a month that is about five and a half months, and the monthly equivalent is 12,189. Nothing you do between now and then reduces that monthly figure. Prepaying usually does not reduce the total either, because the amount owed is fixed rather than accruing — unless the agreement contains a stated early-payoff discount, which is a term, not a right.

Planning around it:compute the retirement date of every obligation and put them on one page. Capacity returns on those dates and not before. If a refinance is not supportable today, it may be supportable in five months for no reason other than an obligation ending, and that is an argument you can make with a document behind it. It is also an argument for waiting rather than applying now and being declined on coverage.

4. Your filed tax returns

Annual. If the last filed year was weak, the next filed year is the next opportunity, and it arrives on your fiscal calendar.

Planning around it:interim financials fill the gap, and their quality is entirely within your control. A labelled, tied-out year-to-date package with a comparative column and a seasonally adjusted annualisation is the best available substitute. Also check whether an extension is outstanding — an unfiled return where an extension has expired is its own problem and is fixable, which puts it on the other list.

5. Your industry

Where a funder maintains an exclusion list, the answer is categorical and no amount of file quality changes it.

Planning around it:find out early rather than after four applications. Ask directly whether your activity is eligible before you send documents. And check your industry code on the commercial credit files, because a business miscoded into a restricted category is being screened out by systems it never speaks to, and that is a correctable error rather than an unfixable fact.

The near-misses that look unfixable and are not

Three things get filed under "cannot fix" and should not be.

A wrong formation date on a credit file.Time in business is unfixable; a file showing the wrong date is a correctable error. Compare the bureau's identification block to your state registration and dispute the difference with the filing attached. A business being screened out on a date two years later than its real one is losing applications to a data error.

A UCC filing from a satisfied obligation.It reads as a live secured creditor in first position and it can stop a file outright. The secured party is supposed to file a termination on payoff and frequently does not. Most states provide a procedure for the debtor to demand one and, failing that, to file a termination — check the requirements under your state's enactment of UCC Article 9.

A wrong industry code.Exclusion lists operate on codes. A miscoded business is being declined by systems it never speaks to, and correcting the code is a dispute, not a fate.

The general principle

For each of the five, the useful question is not "how do I fix this" but "what is the date or condition that changes it, and what can I do in the meantime".

That produces a plan with two halves: the work on the inputs that do move — banking behaviour, average balance, disclosure quality, personal utilisation, the credit build — and a calendar entry for each fixed item saying when the position changes.

Before your next application, write down your time in business measured three ways, the retirement date of every existing obligation, the date of your next filed return, and the status of any public record with the supporting document beside it. That single page tells you whether to apply now or in four months, which is usually the decision that matters more than anything else in the file.

What can't I fix before I apply, and how do I plan around it?