Just about every business these days accepts credit/debit as a form of payment. If your business isn’t, then you are missing out on sales opportunities. Also, if you aren’t accepting plastic as a form of payment then you can forget the possibility of qualifying for a merchant cash advance.   What is a merchant cash advance?   A merchant cash advance is a type of business loan where the lender extends you a loan, usually a line of credit, based on the amount of sales you have coming in each month. The lender uses the income from your sales activities to recoup the payment you owe on the loan.    This type of loan is always unsecured, meaning that you don’t have to sign over any sort of collateral like in a hard money loan. Or, do you?   Hand over the keys to the register!   Even though this type of business loan is considered unsecured, or without collateral, there is some level of security put in place by the lender. Most merchant cash advance lenders require you to give them access to your bank account so that they can withdraw your loan payment from that account.    Something to think about with a merchant cash advance is that the lender may take your payment in daily installments. That’s right, I said daily. Meaning that each day, after you have closed out your sales, a merchant cash advance lender may come in and take one day’s worth of the amount owed for the loan.   For some borrowers this could be seen as a positive, as they don’t have to worry about a huge payment being due at the beginning or end of each month. For others, seeing cash leave their account daily could be too much. For example, what happens if you had a slow sales day that included the need to refund some purchases that put you in a tight cash position? Having a merchant cash advance lender take their payment on that day could hurt your ability to order new inventory. This is a bit of an extreme example, but understanding the mechanics of a merchant cash advance are important.   If you’d like to talk about your particular situation and get my input on what type of loan, if any, makes sense for your business just reach out to me here.