In the literal sense, a business loan is a loan offered for business purposes. The field of business loans is growing day by day. With the diverse types of businesses and their needs, equally varied business loans have emerged.
Categories Of Business Loans
SBA Loans: Small Business Administration or SBA loans are meant for small businesses. SBA doesn’t finance the small businesses directly. The SBA co-ordinates with CDCs and private-sector lenders, such as banks and financial institutions, to finance small businesses.
Secured Loans: Creditors issue secured loans against a worthy asset of the debtor as a security. Applicants require secured loans for working capital when the applicant wants to convert any of the company’s assets into working capital.
Unsecured Loans: Creditors offer unsecured loans for working capital requirements on the basis of the credit worthiness of the debtor. No asset is pledged as a security on the business loan.
Lines of Credit: This is a pre-approved loan for a business based upon the company’s financial records, such as existing inventory, accounts receivable (A/R), and purchase orders (PO). Lines of credit up to $200,000 may be granted without any collateral depending upon the credit worthiness of the business.
Accounts Receivable Loans: In this type of loan, accounts receivable are pledged for availing loans in order to obtain short-term working capital. The creditors process these loans quickly and make them available at low interest rates.
Cash Advance Against Merchant Account: Cash advances up to $50,000 can be granted against the monthly credit receipts of the merchant.
Professional Loans: Creditors offer this type of loan for professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, and chartered accountants seeking to start their own establishments.
Beginners’ Loans: Creditors grant this type of loan to start-up businesses.
Franchisee loans: Creditors offer this type of loan for franchisees of well-known and established businesses.
Acquisition Loans: This type of loan helps business houses to acquire other businesses.
Equipment Loans: This type of loan helps businesses to purchase equipment, which is pledged against the loan.
Equipment Lease Back: In this type of equipment financing, the business sells its existing equipment for cash and then leases the equipment from the lender.
Commercial Realty Loans: Creditors issue this type of loan for commercial properties. The term of the loan may be fixed or variable.
Construction Loans: This type of loan is meant for commercial construction purposes.
Realty Loans: Creditors offer this type of Loan for investors, who invest in real estate.
Hard Loans: This type of loan includes many miscellaneous business needs for which the financing is not readily available in the market. Very few institutions extend it and those that do so, extend it sparingly.
Business dependant loans: Creditors extend this type of loan in the name of the business house based upon its ability to justify the loan amount and its ability to pay it back.
Loan processing Software: To speed up the loan documentation, many known market players offer cost-effective and efficient loan software solutions. This software is for those institutions that extend mortgages, loans, real estate contracts and other installment notes. This software facilitates all the steps of loan processing such as loan origination, processing, underwriting, documenting, and the delivering of the loans. This software functions according to industry standards and regulatory norms.
David Gass is President of Business Credit Services, Inc. His company publishes a free weekly e-newsletter on Small Business Consulting at their web site smallbusinessconsultingdotcom