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A Business loan is a loan granted for the purpose of conducting business. One of the challenges every business owner faces is to arrange a business credit, and this is not always easy to accomplish especially for small businesses.
There are many different types of business loans, depending on the various business factors. Below we describe the most common business loans:
Business startup loans are specially designed to serve new businesses. Most of the big banks offer business startup loans, but you can obtain startup business financing from smaller financial market players or from venture capital firms. If you apply for business startup loan, make sure that you have a sound business plan.
Term business loans are loans usually used to obtain working capital. These types of business loans are repaid monthly over the life of the loan. The term business loans are used for big loans. If your business needs a small amount of cash, you can apply for a short-term business loan (usually less than a year), which has to be repaid in full at the end of the loan term.
The term business loans can be secured or unsecured. The secured small business loans usually use company’s assets as collateral for the loan. The unsecured business loans are provided depending on the credit history and worthiness of the business, but they are harder to get.
The business lines of credit are loans which purpose is to ensure that a business doesn’t have cash flow problems. While with most business loans, the business gets a cheque for the full amount of the loan on closing, the business line of credit allows the business to borrow up to a certain pre-approved amount when needed. Again the purpose of the business line of credit is to solve cash shortage problems, not to use the credit as working capital.
Business credit cards have become very popular lately, and there is a good reason for that. By using business credit cards, a business owner can easily keep track of company’s expenses, as most business credit card companies offer online tools to create expense reports, categorize expenses, check the business credit card statements online, and more.
Business credit cards are very convenient if one or more of company’s employees travel frequently (booking and paying for hotels, flights, business meals, travel expenses, car rental, etc.).
Commercial real estate business loans are granted for the purpose of buying commercial real estate.
There are several approaches to getting a business loan, depending on the type of your business and the purpose of the loan. You can apply for a small business loan directly with a major bank. You can also contact a business loan brokers and let them find you the best business loan. You can even ask friends and relatives to invest in your business.
Before applying for a business loan, find an online business loan calculator and estimate the payments of the loan and how much money can you afford to borrow with a business loan.
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