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By Travis Yule — CEO & Founder, Full Send Funding
What happens after you press submit: the bank-statement signals that decide a file, where the funding number comes from, and why existing positions cause most declines.
Most explanations of business funding describe the application. Very few describe what happens after you press submit, which is the part that decides the outcome. This is that part, written from the side of the desk that makes the decision.
The short version: working capital underwriting is not a credit check. It is an attempt to answer one question — will this business generate enough cash, reliably enough, over the next several months, to make the payments and still operate? — using the only evidence that reliably answers it, which is the bank account. Credit score is a minor input. Revenue, consistency, and what is already taking money out of the account are the major ones.
Understanding that changes what you send us, what you fix before applying, and whether you are surprised by the answer.
There are only two questions underneath everything else.
Can this business afford the payment? Not "is it profitable" — profit and cash are different, and a profitable business with a ninety-day collection cycle can be less able to service a daily debit than a break-even one that gets paid at the till. The question is about cash flow timing and cushion.
Will it still be here to make the payment? Which is a question about stability: how long the business has operated, whether revenue is trending or collapsing, how concentrated its customers are, and whether it is already carrying more obligations than it can service.
Everything below is instrumentation for those two questions.
Bank statements are the primary document because they are the hardest to dress up. A profit and loss statement is a set of choices about how to present activity. A bank statement is a record of what actually happened, day by day, and it is produced by a third party.
You can provide statements two ways: send them directly, or link the account through Plaid, which shares a read-only view. Linking is faster and removes transcription errors; sending PDFs works equally well and some owners prefer it. Either way, here is what is actually being read.
How Full Send Funding reads a file. Other funders weight these differently, but the list itself is close to universal.
Two of those deserve expansion, because they cause more declines than anything else.
Deposit consistency beats deposit size. A business depositing $40,000 every month is a stronger file than one averaging $60,000 with a range from $12,000 to $150,000. The second business may well be larger and more profitable. It is harder to underwrite, because the payment has to be sized against the bad month, not the average one. If your revenue is genuinely seasonal, say so up front — seasonality that is explained is a fact, and seasonality that is not is volatility.
Negative days are read as capacity, not character. A handful of days in overdraft across three months is not a moral failing and nobody treats it as one. It is a direct measurement of how much cushion the account carries, and cushion is precisely what a new payment consumes. Six negative days in a month means the business is already operating at the edge of its balance, and a daily debit would push it over. That is the whole reasoning.
Funding size is derived from revenue, not from what was requested. The published rule is a range of 80% to 150% of monthly revenue — a business doing $50,000 a month is typically looking at $40,000 to $75,000, with the position inside that range set by everything else in the file.
What moves you up the range: long operating history, consistent deposits, low existing debt service, a strong balance, diversified customers. What moves you down: volatility, existing positions, negative days, heavy customer concentration, a very short operating history.
The published sizing rule, applied arithmetically. Where a business lands inside the band depends on operating history, deposit consistency and existing positions — an approval is an amount, a term and a payment rhythm, not a single number.
What does not move it: how much you asked for. An underwriter who approves $150,000 for a business that can service $60,000 has not done anyone a favour — that is how a business ends up refinancing inside three months.
The overall range we fund runs from $5,000 to $10 million, and revolving lines of credit are sized from $10,000 to $2 million. The minimum bar to apply is three or more months in business and at least $10,000 a month in revenue.
This is the single most common cause of a decline, and the least discussed.
Before anything else, the statements are read for other people's debits. Daily or weekly withdrawals in consistent amounts, ACH descriptors belonging to known funders, payments that started mid-statement — these are existing advances, and they are visible whether or not they are disclosed.
Total debt service is then measured against revenue. There is a level beyond which a business cannot support another payment, and it arrives sooner than most owners expect, because each additional position takes its share of the same deposits.
Two things follow.
Disclose them. Undisclosed positions are found in the statements and the discovery costs more than the positions themselves would have. It changes what the file looks like from "a business with existing obligations" — which is normal and fundable — to "a file that is not accurate", which is not.
Stacking is a decline, not a discount. Adding a third or fourth concurrent position rarely makes a business more able to pay; it makes the same deposits carry more debits. The mechanics and the ways out are in the stacking trap. If the honest answer is that the existing positions are the problem, consolidation is a real conversation and more capital is not — and there are situations where borrowing is simply the wrong answer.
Applying uses a soft credit pull only, which does not affect the score. What comes back is used as one input among several, and it is worth being precise about what it does and does not do.
What credit does not do here: it does not set a pass/fail threshold. All credit profiles may apply, and a business with strong revenue and weak personal credit is a normal approval. Roughly 90% of applicants are approved, which is only possible because the decision is not primarily a credit decision.
What credit does do: it flags things worth asking about. Recent judgments, open tax liens, an active bankruptcy, or a pattern of very recent delinquency are signals about the near future, not the distant past. They usually generate a question rather than a decline.
On defaults specifically, because it is the question we are asked most: a previous default that has been settled or paid off does not disqualify a business. An open, unresolved default is a decline. The distinction is whether the obligation is closed, not whether it ever existed.
The difference between a soft and a hard pull, and what each does to a file, is covered in soft pull versus hard pull.
A surprising amount of what applicants worry about has no bearing on the outcome.
Industry. All industries are served. Some carry different risk characteristics and get structured differently — a seasonal landscaping business and a medical practice have different cash rhythms and should not get the same payment shape — but industry is an input to structure, not a gate.
Business structure. LLCs, S-corporations, C-corporations, partnerships and sole proprietorships are all eligible. Non-profits are funded on the same standard bar.
State. All fifty states.
Collateral. None is required. Equipment financing is the stated exception, where the equipment itself secures the deal.
Perfect books. Formal financial statements are useful on larger files and unnecessary on most. Three months of bank statements and an application is the normal package.
An approval is not one number. It is an amount, a term, and a payment rhythm, and the last two matter as much as the first.
A file that is declined at one shape is sometimes approved at another. If the answer is no, it is worth asking whether it is no to the amount, the term, or the whole file — those are three different answers.
Pricing is a function of measured risk, not a menu. The inputs that move it are the same ones that decide approval: time in business, revenue consistency, existing debt service, balance behaviour, and how long the money is out.
Because cost is expressed as a fixed factor rather than an interest rate, the term drives the annualized cost more than the headline number does — which is why understanding APR versus factor rate matters before comparing any two offers. A full account of what we charge and how we are paid is on how we make money.
Two structural commitments that affect what an approval costs you beyond the price: we file no UCC-1 lien against the funded business, and our agreements contain no confession of judgment. Both are common in this industry and both have real consequences — a blanket lien can block your next facility, and a confession of judgment is a pre-signed consent to a judgment against you. Ask any funder about both.
What actually slows a file down, in order: statements that are incomplete or unreadable, an undisclosed existing position discovered late, a bank account whose name does not match the business entity, and unanswered questions.
If you have thirty to ninety days and want a better outcome, these are the levers, in order of effect:
Working capital underwriting reads your bank account to answer two questions: can the business afford this payment, and will it still be here to make it. Deposit consistency matters more than deposit size, negative days measure the cushion a new payment would consume, and existing positions are the most common reason for a decline. Credit is a signal, not a gate — a soft pull only, roughly 90% of applicants approved, settled defaults fine and open ones not. Size comes from revenue at 80% to 150% of a month, term and payment rhythm should match what the money is for, and a decline at one shape is sometimes an approval at another.
If you want to know what your own numbers would produce, check what you would qualify for — a minute, no credit impact — or call 518-312-0382 and ask directly.
Average daily balance, deposit consistency, the number and source of deposits, negative days and NSF activity, existing daily or weekly debits from other funders, transfers between your own accounts that inflate deposit totals, and whether the name on the account matches the applicant. Consistency and cushion carry more weight than the headline revenue figure.
Sizing runs from 80% to 150% of monthly revenue, so a business depositing $50,000 a month is typically looking at $40,000 to $75,000. Position inside that band is set by operating history, deposit consistency, existing debt service, balance behaviour and customer concentration. The overall range funded is $5,000 to $10 million, with revolving lines of credit sized from $10,000 to $2 million.
No. Applying uses a soft credit pull only, which does not affect your score. Credit is one input among several rather than a pass/fail threshold — a business with strong revenue and weak personal credit is a normal approval, which is only possible because the decision is not primarily a credit decision.
The most common single cause is existing positions: total debt service against revenue reaching a level where the business cannot support another payment. After that, negative days and NSF activity, revenue volatility that forces the payment to be sized against the worst month, an open unresolved default, revenue not running through the business account, and a mismatch between the depositing entity and the applicant.
A previous default that has been settled or paid off does not disqualify a business. An open, unresolved default is a decline. The distinction is whether the obligation is closed, not whether it ever existed.
Three or more months in business and at least $10,000 a month in revenue. Businesses in all fifty states are eligible, as are LLCs, S-corporations, C-corporations, partnerships and sole proprietorships, and non-profits are funded on the same standard bar. No collateral is required — equipment financing, where the equipment itself secures the deal, is the stated exception.
A decision comes back within 24 business hours, and funding follows within 24 hours of approval once the agreement is signed. Applications submitted before 2pm ET can fund the same day. End to end, one to three business days is typical. What slows a file down, in order: incomplete or unreadable statements, an undisclosed existing position discovered late, a bank account whose name does not match the business, and unanswered questions.
Yes, always. They are visible in the bank statements regardless, and the discovery costs more than the positions themselves would have — it changes the file from "a business with existing obligations", which is normal and fundable, to "a file that is not accurate", which is not.
A read-only view of the account activity that would otherwise be sent as PDF statements. It is faster and removes transcription errors. Sending statements directly works equally well, and some owners prefer it — either route provides the same evidence.
Travis Yule founded Full Send Funding in 2021 and leads it from Middle Grove, New York. He writes about working capital from the underwriting side of the table — what the numbers actually have to say before a business gets funded.