The short answer
Funders underwrite the bank statements before anything else — average daily balance, deposit consistency, negative days and existing positions. Time in business and industry set the outer bounds, and credit matters far less than in traditional lending. A file is priced on whether the receipts can absorb a daily remittance, not on whether the owner looks creditworthy.
Advance underwriting is not credit underwriting with looser standards. It asks a different question — can these receipts carry a daily remittance without breaking — and that changes what matters.
The order things get checked
| # | What | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Average daily balance | Whether a remittance can be taken without overdrawing |
| 2 | Deposit consistency | Whether the revenue is dependable or lumpy |
| 3 | Negative days | Direct evidence of whether the account already runs tight |
| 4 | Existing positions | How much of the receipts is already committed |
| 5 | Time in business and industry | Outer bounds on offer size and price |
Notice what is not on that list. Personal credit is usually a screen rather than a driver — it can disqualify at the extremes and rarely improves an offer much in the middle.
What the statements actually reveal
- Average daily balance is the headline. A merchant averaging $2,000 cannot service a $500 daily remittance regardless of monthly revenue.
- Deposit count and pattern. Twenty deposits a month reads as steady trading; three large ones read as project-based and price worse.
- Negative days. More than a handful across four months is the fastest route to a decline, and it is the number merchants most often forget you will see.
- Other remittances. Daily or weekly debits to known funders reveal positions whether or not the merchant disclosed them.
- Transfers between accounts. Circular movement inflating apparent revenue is caught quickly and damages the file badly.
What a broker can actually influence
Not the numbers. What you control is whether the file explains them.
- Context for anomalies. A month of low deposits with an explanation is a different file from the same month unexplained.
- Completeness. Four consecutive months, all pages, legible. Missing pages read as concealment even when they are carelessness.
- The right funder. Placement is where the judgement lives — some funders take restaurant paper others will not touch, and knowing that is what separates shops.
- A realistic ask. Requesting $150,000 against $40,000 monthly revenue signals you did not read the statements either.