Be On Your Qs And Qs

Just in case you’re thinking that the title of today’s blog is a typo, you can think again. We know, of course, that it is always a good idea to “be on your Ps and Qs”, but in the case of Synergy’s merchant cash advance program, experiencing the two Qs is most important.

Those two Qs, in case you were wondering, refer to the simple two-step process we provide our clients in order to let them know how much money their businesses can get: Qualification and the Quote.

Unlike a bank, Synergy does not put clients through a long drawn-out process that insists upon getting collateral and liens. We also do not require a standard credit check as a bank would when seeing about approving a customer for a business loan. Instead, we first qualify our clients by asking a few simple questions.

The qualification process begins by discovering how many years the client has been in business. We require that a Canadian business owner who accepts Visa, MasterCard and/or Interac cards as methods of payment be in business for, at least, one year. That way, our licensed funding specialists are able to provide a free review of statements from the last year of business to determine the type of transactions the merchant makes on a monthly average.

This monthly average then helps to determine the amount of the cash advance that may be approved for the client. We also ask which merchant processor the client works with to accept credit and debit payments as his or her store. Synergy is partnered with a number of processors including Moneris, TD Merchants and Chase Paymentech.

These relationships allow for the repayment process to be virtually seamless as the payments are made automatically through each future credit and debit sale. Finally, we ask what the merchant’s average monthly volume is. We are looking for our clients to make a minimum of $5,000 in credit and debit sales monthly.

Once a client is qualified, we move him or her on to the second “Q” – the quote. We happily provide our customers with a free quote that entails three essential pieces of information. Firstly, we reveal the approved amount of the cash advance. Secondly, our funding specialists confirm the exact cost of taking the money.

Again, we differ from a bank in that we do not charge interest. Instead, there is a one time fee that is added to the advance amount and is simply paid back over time through future credit and debit sales. This brings us to the third important piece of info in the quote.

The quote reveals a “withholding percentage”. This way, our clients know exactly what percentage of their future credit and debit sales will be used to repay the advance. As always, there is no obligation to take the money. However, going through the quick and easy process of “the two Qs” is a step we believe that all Canadian business owners should try.