Business financing glossary
Lending has a lot of jargon. Here are clear, plain-language definitions of the terms you'll run into when financing your business.
Advance Rate
An advance rate is the percentage of an asset's value that a lender is willing to finance upfront — for example, 85% of an invoice's face value — with the remainder held back or covered by your own funds.
Annual Revenue
Annual revenue is the total amount of money your business takes in from sales over a 12-month period, before subtracting any expenses, taxes, or costs.
APR (Annual Percentage Rate)
APR (Annual Percentage Rate) is the total yearly cost of borrowing expressed as a percentage, combining the interest rate with most required fees so you can compare different financing offers on an apples-to-apples basis.
Blanket Lien
A blanket lien is a legal claim that lets a lender use all of a business's assets as collateral for a loan, rather than just one specific item.
Business Credit Score
A business credit score is a number that rates how likely your company is to repay its debts, based on the business's own credit history rather than your personal credit.
Collateral
Collateral is an asset a business pledges to a lender to secure a loan. If the borrower can't repay, the lender can seize and sell the collateral to recover what it's owed.
Debt Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR)
The debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) measures a business's ability to cover its debt payments with its operating income. It is calculated by dividing net operating income by total debt obligations, including the loan being applied for.
Factor Rate
A factor rate is a decimal multiplier — usually between 1.1 and 1.5 — used to calculate the total amount you'll repay on a merchant cash advance or short-term advance, rather than an annual interest rate.
Holdback
A holdback is the fixed percentage of a business's daily or weekly card sales that a funder automatically withholds to repay a merchant cash advance, so payments rise and fall with revenue.
Origination Fee
An origination fee is an upfront charge a lender adds for processing and funding a loan — typically a percentage of the amount borrowed — that raises the real cost of financing beyond the stated interest rate.
Personal Guarantee
A personal guarantee is a promise that makes a business owner personally responsible for repaying a loan if the business defaults, allowing the lender to pursue the owner's personal assets to recover the debt.
Prepayment Penalty
A prepayment penalty is a fee some lenders charge when you pay off a loan early. It compensates the lender for the interest income they lose when a loan is repaid ahead of schedule.
Prime Rate
The prime rate is the benchmark interest rate that commercial banks charge their most creditworthy customers. It serves as a starting point for pricing many business loans and lines of credit, which are often quoted as "prime plus" a margin.
Recourse vs. Non-Recourse
Recourse means a lender can pursue your other assets if collateral or pledged receivables don't cover what you owe, while non-recourse limits the lender to the specific collateral and absorbs certain losses themselves.
Revolving Credit
Revolving credit is a flexible form of financing that lets a business borrow up to a set limit, repay what it uses, and borrow again — without reapplying. You pay interest only on the balance you've drawn.
Secured vs. Unsecured Loan
A secured loan is backed by collateral the lender can seize if you default, while an unsecured loan is not tied to a specific asset and relies mainly on your creditworthiness.
Term Loan
A term loan is a lump sum of money you borrow and repay in regular, scheduled installments over a fixed period of time, usually with interest at a set or variable rate.
Time in Business
Time in business is how long a company has been operating, usually measured from its official start or registration date. Lenders use it to gauge stability and risk when reviewing a financing application.
UCC Lien
A UCC lien is a public notice — filed under the Uniform Commercial Code, often via a UCC-1 form — that gives a lender a legal claim on specific business assets (or all of them) as collateral until the financing is repaid.