What actually happens after you submit an application?

Phone verification, by one-time code, is the last step rather than the first. Nothing is submitted until the code is entered, which is what stops fabricated applications — and why a real number is required rather than optional.

Distribution. The application is sent to funding companies in the network. Which ones receive it on a given day depends on their own capacity and criteria, and any of them can decline to look at it.

Underwriting. Six months of bank statements read for deposit volume, consistency, negative days and existing obligations. This is where most of the time goes and where having statements ready matters.

Offers back, typically within a day or so, with the amount, the term and the total repayment. That timing is the funders', not a commitment we can make for them. Then a decision that is entirely yours.

Whether you can produce recent business bank statements. The application asks the question; it does not collect the files. You send those to the funder once one is interested, as PDFs from the bank rather than screenshots.

Basic business details: entity, time trading, industry, state, monthly deposits.

Funders may ask for further documents of their own before releasing money. That happens between you and them, after an offer, not on this application.

Nobody legitimate will ask for online banking passwords, a payment to release funds, or your full Social Security number by email.

Compare total dollar repayment and the term together. Neither number means anything alone, and the factor rate on its own means less than either.

Check the repayment frequency and the reconciliation clause before the price. They determine whether the facility is survivable on a bad month.

Ask what is filed — a specific or blanket UCC — and whether there is a confession of judgment.

You are under no obligation to accept anything. An offer you do not like is information about what you qualify for, which is worth having on its own.