Businesses looking to secure finance have many options available to them, including from traditional business banks and specialist alternative finance providers.
Although each provider will have its own approval process and criteria, most will require a combination of bank account history and identification documents to begin an application.
Many lenders will have an online eligibility calculator to ensure your business meets its basic lending criteria. Specialist alternative finance provider Capify – whose online checker can be found here – requires the following conditions to be met to apply for a business loan:
– Must be a registered business in the UK
– Trading for minimum 12 months
– £10,000+ minimum monthly turnover
– Applicant must be 18 years+ of age
If a business has met those requirements, it can begin the application process in earnest. The first step is to work out how much you want to loan, for how long and what level of monthly repayment you can afford.
Capify’s interactive business loan calculator is a good way of seeing how these variable factors impact each other and influence the loan level that is right for your business.
Starting the loan process
The Government announced the Energy Bill Relief Scheme last September, to help businesses with soaring energy bills. But it’s set to be replaced with the, less impactful, Energy Bills Discount Scheme from 1 April.
We may see some further support to help businesses with their energy bills announced in the Budget. It has been reported that the scheme for domestic customers may continue past April, but the Government has not yet indicated whether this will include non-domestic customers.
Completing the loan process
Once you’ve decided on the optimum level of small business finance, a small business owner can complete their application with the following elements, which are required for credit checking purposes. It is worth preparing these documents ahead of applying for a small business loan, to speed up the application process.
- Limited company name and Companies House number
- Details of all sharesholders who have 25% plus shareholding
- Read only access to your banks accounts via Open Banking or 12 months Bank statement ( these can be scanned and sent as a file with the application)
Once your business has met these standard credit assessment criteria, you will be able to receive the loan. At Capify, these can be approved within hours and have funds in your account in a day, although some providers will take longer with approvals and transfers.
If your business needs a short-term loan to help with current cash flow concerns, please speak to one of our specialist advisors on 0800 151 0980.
Alternatively, you can start the process for our unsecured small business loans with our online eligibility checker and our business loan calculator.
