Funding, finance and commercial support for growing businesses.

No. We help you work out what you actually need, present the numbers properly and access the right kind of facility through funding and banking partners. The lending decision is always the lender's, and any adviser suggesting otherwise is overselling their influence. What we do change is the quality of the application: a costed forecast, management accounts that reconcile to the last filed accounts, and clear answers to the questions lenders always ask. That is usually the difference between a fast yes and a slow no, but it is not a guarantee of either.

A full application leaves a footprint; an indicative or soft enquiry usually does not. The mistake that does real damage is applying widely and hoping — several hard searches in a short period reads as distress to the next lender who looks. Be deliberate about the order: match the facility to the need first, approach the lender most likely to say yes second, and only broaden if that fails. For company borrowing, expect a personal guarantee to be requested for most small business lending, and read what it actually covers before signing it.

Not necessarily, but concealing them is. Some lenders will consider arrears, particularly where a Time to Pay arrangement is agreed and being met, because that demonstrates the position is managed rather than ignored. Sorting the arrangement first often changes the answer entirely. What sinks applications is arrears discovered by the lender rather than disclosed — at which point every other figure you have given them is in question. Talk to HMRC before they escalate; Time to Pay is considerably easier to agree before enforcement action than after.

Entirely dependent on the product. Invoice finance and asset finance can move within days once the paperwork is complete. Unsecured term lending typically takes longer because the underwriting is on the business rather than the asset. Commercial mortgages involve valuation and legal work and take considerably longer again — months rather than weeks. In almost every case the delay is documents rather than decisions, which is why the application pack matters: incomplete management figures, missing bank statements or a forecast that does not reconcile will add weeks to any of these.

It comes down to three things: the cash you want to keep, the total cost of the finance over its term, and the tax treatment of each route. Outright purchase may qualify for full expensing or the Annual Investment Allowance, giving relief now. Hire purchase generally lets you claim capital allowances on the asset while spreading the cash, with interest relieved separately. An operating lease is treated differently again, with the rentals deducted as they arise. The right answer changes with your tax position, so it is a calculation worth running properly rather than a rule of thumb.

Agreed in writing before any work starts, and where a commission is payable by a lender or provider that is disclosed too. Ask specifically who is paying whom — brokered lending is frequently remunerated by the lender, which is not inherently a problem but does mean the incentive is to complete a deal rather than to conclude you do not need one. The most valuable outcome of these conversations is quite often deciding not to borrow, because the cash is already in the working capital cycle. That does not pay anybody a commission, which is precisely why it needs saying.

When it is being used to fund a loss rather than an asset or a genuine timing gap. Debt does not fix a business that is unprofitable at the current price and cost base; it postpones the reckoning and adds a repayment to it. The other common case is borrowing to cover a shortfall that is really uncollected debt — several months of profit sitting in debtors and stock, retrievable by tightening collections rather than by paying interest to a lender. We would rather run the forecast first and find that out.