Two questions, the evidence, and an answer.

You tell us how much and what for. Not which facility.

Working out whether that is a loan, a line, a bridge or something else is the job you come to us for. So is working out where it goes, which matters more than most business owners realise.

Then it is your decision. We recommend and we place. What you take is yours.

Your accounts describe a year that has already finished: you could have turned over three million last year and be in a different position today. The bank account shows where the business is now, and the last three months carry most of the weight. Most lenders underwrite the same way, whatever their website says about accounts.

Six months, five to seven minutes from your banking app. That is the whole ask.

A property deal is read differently. The asset, the transaction and the exit carry it, and statements matter far less.

Nobody can pre-approve a business without its details, a credit search or its statements. When an email says you are approved for a figure, none of that has happened. The number exists to get your statements, and it moves the moment somebody looks.

We will tell you if there looks to be potential, and why, but we will not give you a figure until we have seen how the business trades. That costs us deals: businesses handed a number elsewhere sometimes go with the number.

The same business, on the same statements, gets different answers from different lenders. Which one sees the case, how much is asked for and how it is presented move the outcome as much as the numbers do. Appetite moves too: what was funded easily in March is declined in September.

Eight years of reading outcomes tells us where a case lands, and there is no shortcut to that.

Bridging and development finance go through the same conversation as anything else: two questions first, the same evidence before a figure, and any fee agreed with you before work starts.

What changes is what gets looked at. The asset, the exit and the numbers behind the build carry the case, and it goes to lending partners who underwrite on that rather than on turnover.

A business that goes in now and is declined is worse off than one that waits three months and goes in stronger: the decline sits on the file and the next attempt is harder. If that is where you are, we will say so and tell you what would change it.

There is no commission in that conversation, which is why few brokers have it.

Some checks leave no mark. Some do.

Which is which gets explained before anything runs. A search that leaves a mark normally happens when you accept an offer, at the lending partner’s end. Some partners work the other way round and assess first, and where that applies you are told before anything is submitted.

We build the full picture at the start, then confirm and update it.

Many brokers ask for one thing, then another, then another, and cases die somewhere in the middle. It is a common reason a fundable business never gets funded.

Everything you send sits in encrypted, access-controlled storage. Security and data

People assume a large brokerage has more lenders, more weight and more chance of getting it done. Often it has more volume moving through more people: a case waits in a queue, goes out to a panel rather than to the one lender that would have approved it, and the person you spoke to first is not the person handling it by week two.

We take a limited number of cases. A brokerage that submits everything places nothing well, and its lenders stop taking the call.

Owners often tell us they could borrow more cheaply in their own name. Usually that is an advertised rate, not an offer.

Where a personal rate really is lower, it is because lenders hold better data on individuals and the debt follows the person. It also uses up capacity on your personal file that you do not get back, and personal credit put into the business is not personal use, which shows in the account. Where the personal route is better, we will say so.

On unsecured lending, by the lending partner when the case completes. On some facilities an arrangement fee can also apply, and it is shown before you sign.

On property finance we do charge, and the amount is agreed with you before any work starts. If a fee applies to your case, you will know before you commit to anything. The Terms of Business also set out an abort fee if you withdraw after signing the lending partner’s documents.

You can ask what any facility pays us, at any point, and we will tell you.

Most of what we earn still arrives at completion, which is why you get told where the case really is, including when it is going badly, and why you get a number you can call rather than an inbox.