By Chad Otar
Lending Valley
For many business owners, a merchant cash advance is ideal for supplying fast funding. As merchant cash advances are paid back through sales, they are often easier and faster to secure than traditional bank loans. With a merchant cash advance, you'll only be repaying the advance when sales are rolling in (as you pay back a percentage of your sales income). Thus you won't be putting your business on the financial brink if sales are a little leaner on occasion.
Merchant cash advances have gained in popularity since they were introduced in the 1990s. You can thank the rise in small businesses, particularly online, for this. In this article, I'll share information on a few merchant cash advance options available today. This is not a complete guide to every merchant cash advance provider (there are dozens if not hundreds), but rather a quick look at the varied merchant cash advance options sphere.
Many of today's small businesses are running their operations through Shopify. If you are in the same boat, then you may want to consider the modern Shopify Capital. Just like PayPal Working Capital, Shopify will look at the sales you have coming through your Shopify account to determine whether you qualify for Shopify Capital. The decision process takes a bit longer than some other cash advance options: you'll need to wait two to three days to get an answer.
Repayment on Shopify Capital follows the typical cash advance model. It will be based on daily sales, so you pay back only what you can afford (in theory).
Rapid Finance is a more traditional merchant cash advance company, even though it does business only online. Like traditional merchant cash advance companies, Rapid Finance will look at your bank and credit card processing statements to see how much cash you have coming in. The company will need to look at the last three months.
Then if you are approved, Rapid Finance will decide the size of your advance. Repayments are flexible, and you'll be told everything you need to know upfront.
Reliant Funding is not dissimilar to Rapid Finance, although the process to apply is a little quicker. Reliant Funding will also need to look at the incoming card transactions for your business over the last few months to see whether your business could qualify for a merchant cash advance. If so, you'll then be making flexible repayments.
It's a good idea to check out both Reliant Funding and Rapid Finance to see how well each would satisfy your needs.
Remember, this is just an introduction to merchant cash advance options. Since taking advantage of a merchant cash advance will impact your business or that of your merchant customers, it is important to conduct research to make sure you have the right merchant cash advance for you.
Things that may make a difference to you in selecting a provider are the amount of time it takes a provider to make a decision, which can range from days to minutes; amount of money you are able to receive, which will vary depending on your financial situation and a provider's underwriting parameters; and algorithms or other advanced technology available to crunch data to help analyze a borrower's creditworthiness and then handle repayment.
Also, do not have more than one merchant cash advance running at a time. For starters, it breaks the rules for many lenders, but it also means that you will be stretching your finances thin with multiple advances, which is what a merchant cash advance is meant to prevent. So, spend hours, or even a few days, checking out the options.
As a service provider, consider researching what kind of partnership opportunities various providers provide, too, so you can add merchant cash advance to your product suite.
Lending Valley, also provides merchant cash advances. However, as a contributing writer, my aim is to provide helpful information without extolling the benefits of my own company. If you're interested in contacting me for further information about this article, please get in touch using the contact information in my bio.
Note: I consulted the following sources for this article: tinyurl.com/4rhex4xs and www.lendingvalley.com. 
Chad Otar is CEO of Lending Valley Inc. For information about the company, please visit www.lendingvalley.com. To reach Chad, send an email to chad@lendingvalley.com.
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