Why do banks turn down cleaning companies for loans?

The cost base is payroll, and payroll is not an asset. There is very little for a bank to secure a facility against.

Commercial contracts commonly pay on thirty to sixty day terms while your crews are paid weekly, so the business is structurally short of working capital even when it is profitable.

Margins are thin and competitive, which reads as fragility on a model that looks at profit rather than at contracted revenue.

Recurring contracts are close to ideal underwriting material. Monthly billing to the same commercial clients produces a deposit pattern with very little noise in it.

The classic use is winning a contract you cannot immediately staff — hiring and equipping a crew weeks before the first invoice settles. That gap is what the funding is for.

Client concentration will be examined. A single anchor contract carrying most of your revenue is the real risk here, not the absence of collateral.

Working capital underwritten on recurring contract revenue is the fit: contracts are predictable and easy to verify against deposits, so a funder approves what a bank would not secure.

It covers payroll when a new contract starts before its first payment, supplies for a larger site, or a second crew. Weekly repayment usually suits contract billing better than daily.

Six months of business bank statements.

Your contracted monthly revenue and roughly what share the largest client represents.

Payment terms on your major contracts, which explain the gap you are funding.