Which funding products does this apply to?

Merchant Cash Advance, Working Capital, Term Loan, Business Line of Credit, Equipment Financing, Asset-Based Lending. 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 A market average assembled from lenders who do not publish prices is a guess with a decimal point on it.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.

Keep a debt schedule current instead of rebuilding it each time

Keeping a debt schedule current instead of rebuilding it every time

A schedule updated in eight minutes a month is a management tool. A schedule assembled the night before a submission is a liability with your signature on it.

By Find Me Funders research desk Updated 14 September 2026 969 words 4 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.

Most owners meet the business debt schedule as a form: a blank grid a lender sends, filled in under time pressure from memory and a pile of statements. Filled that way it is a reconstruction, and reconstructions have gaps. The advance that was paid off in March gets left on. The equipment lease with the ninety-day deferral gets omitted because no payment has come out yet. The card balance is whatever was on the last statement you happen to remember.

Maintained monthly, the same document does something different. It becomes the one page that tells you what your fixed obligations actually cost each month, when each of them ends, and how much cash comes back to you when it does. That is a planning instrument, and the fact that it also satisfies a lender's form is a by-product.

What a maintained schedule holds

One row per obligation, with columns you can update from a statement without thinking:

Creditor and product type.Term loan, equipment lease, line of credit, card, advance, tax payment plan, related-party loan. Type matters because analysts treat them differently — a revolving balance is not the same commitment as an amortising one.

Original amount and date taken.For a purchase-of-receivables product, record both the amount funded and the purchased amount, because the difference is the cost and the purchased amount is what remains owing.

Current balance, as at a stated date.Not the original amount. Not last year's figure.

Payment amount and frequency.Daily, weekly, semi-monthly, monthly. A daily debit is not a monthly payment divided by thirty; write it as it is debited and convert separately.

Monthly equivalent.Daily payment times the number of banking days in the month, weekly times 4.33, and so on. This column is the one you actually use.

Payments remaining and projected payoff date.For an amortising loan this comes from the schedule. For a fixed-total product, remaining balance divided by the payment.

Collateral and whether personally guaranteed.Two yes-or-no columns that save a round of questions.

The monthly update, and what it shows you

Illustrative only —three obligations at the start of a month.

Term loan: balance 86,000, payment 1,740 monthly, 58 payments remaining.
Equipment finance: balance 31,400, payment 962 monthly, 34 payments remaining.
Merchant cash advance: amount funded 50,000, purchased amount 67,500, daily debit 562.50. Remaining payments 67,500 ÷ 562.50 = 120.

Convert the advance to a monthly equivalent using 21.67 banking days: 562.50 × 21.67 = 12,189.38 a month. Total monthly debt service is 1,740 + 962 + 12,189.38 = 14,891.38.

That figure is the reason to maintain the schedule. The advance is 82 percent of the monthly debt service and it disappears in about five and a half months, at which point the same business drops to 2,702 a month. Two businesses with identical revenue and identical balance sheets can be six months apart in what they can afford, and only the schedule shows it.

Now the roll-forward. On the term loan at a nominal 9.9 percent, one month's interest is 86,000 × 0.099 ÷ 12 = 709.50. Principal reduction is 1,740 − 709.50 = 1,030.50, and next month's balance is 84,969.50. Two minutes per amortising line. The advance line is simpler: subtract the month's debits from the purchased amount.

The reviews the schedule makes possible

Once the rows are current, three questions answer themselves.

When does capacity return?Sort by payoff date. A refinance you cannot support today may be supportable in five months for no reason other than an advance retiring. That is an argument you can make to a lender with a document behind it, and it is also an argument for waiting.

What is the blended cost of what you already owe?For each amortising line you have a rate. For each fixed-total product you have a cost — purchased amount less amount funded, over a term implied by the remaining payments. You cannot average a factor rate with an interest rate directly, because a factor has no time dimension, but you can compare total dollars of cost remaining across the whole schedule and that number is usually the one that changes behaviour.

Which line would refinancing actually help?Almost always the one with the largest monthly equivalent and the shortest remaining term, which is rarely the one with the largest balance.

Three habits that keep it honest

Update on close day, from statements rather than memory, at the same time you reconcile.
Add the line the day the money lands, not at the next close. An obligation taken on the twelfth and recorded on the fifth of the following month is an obligation that does not exist during the three weeks you might be discussing terms with someone.
Keep paid-off lines on the sheet with a payoff date and a zero balance for twelve months. An analyst reading three months of statements will see debits for an obligation that no longer exists and ask about it. A row showing it closed on a date answers that before it is asked, and it also demonstrates something useful: that you finish what you start.

What to reconcile it against

Three sources, every month. The bank statements, where every recurring debit should map to a row. A UCC search on your entity at the state level, which shows filings you may have forgotten and occasionally ones you did not know about. And your own accounting file, where the liabilities section should total to the schedule.

When those three agree, the schedule is a document you can hand over without preparing it. When they do not, the discrepancy is yours to explain rather than a lender's to discover, and that ordering is worth more than most of the individual numbers on the page.

Where this applies