A personal funding analysis reads your credit file and nothing else. A business analysis needs something the file does not carry: how old the business is, what it earns, and how it is set up. The business questionnaire is where you tell it. It is short, and every field in it does a specific job in the report. This walkthrough goes through the fields in the order the form shows them, then covers what happens to the answers.
Key takeaways
- The questionnaire holds nine facts about the business. The report compares them to each capital category's floors.
- Bands keep the form fast. A band that spans a floor cannot clear it; the exact formation date and monthly revenue can.
- The legal name of the business is never sent to the analysis.
- Changing any answer counts as a change to your file and unlocks a new analysis.
Business name
The name you give the business is for you. It labels the business in your portal so you can tell one from another, and that is all it does. The legal name is never sent to the analysis. For a sole proprietor the business name is often the owner's own name, and the report is built so that no personal identifier reaches the model; the business is described to the analysis only as "the business." Use whatever name helps you recognise it.
Time in business
A band: under 6 months, 6 months to 1 year, 1 to 2 years, or 2 or more years. This is the first of the two floors every capital category carries. Equipment financing and revenue-based products open at 6 months in our partner book; term loans and lines of credit at 12 months; SBA at 24. The report compares your band to each floor and names the categories your band clears.
Formation date
The exact date the business was formed. The report converts it to months in business and, when it is present, compares that figure to each floor instead of the band. It is required when you first add a business.
Revenue band
A band: pre-revenue, under $50K, $50K to $250K, $250K to $500K, $500K to $1M, $1M to $5M, or $5M and above, all annual. The second floor. Pre-revenue places the business where cards are the only category; each band above it is compared to the revenue floors from our partner book.
Monthly revenue
Your revenue as an exact monthly figure in whole dollars. Zero is allowed. Like the formation date it is required when you first add a business, and when it is present the report uses it, and its annual equivalent, instead of the band. Enter what the bank statements would show, because that is what a lender will verify.
Entity type
Sole proprietor on your Social Security number, EIN registered, or an LLC or S-Corp. The report uses it to know whether the business has an identity separate from yours. A sole proprietorship is read as your personal file with a trade name; an EIN or formed entity is what every business-information request begins with.
Industry
Optional, in your own words. It survives to the analysis as ordinary text and lets the report weigh one fact: real estate, restaurants, tobacco, trucking, and entity names carrying "investments," "holdings" or "capital" read as higher risk to card underwriters. State the industry as it is. The report never advises describing the business as something else, and neither should anyone.
Business bank account
Yes or no. Revenue is verified through bank statements, and a business without its own account has revenue it cannot show. The relationship-bank rows in your lender tiers also depend on it. Update this the day the account opens.
Prior funding
Whether the business has obtained funding before, and if so a band: under $25K, $25K to $100K, $100K to $500K, or $500K and above. The report reads it as context for where the business sits on the ladder. The band is only asked when the answer is yes.
Why the report asks in bands
Bands keep the form to a minute and let the report reason about a business without a single exact figure, which is what the categories are written in: our partner book states each floor as a time and a revenue level, and a band is enough to say "above" or "below" most of the time.
The exception is the band that straddles a floor. The unsecured term loan category, for example, opens at $17,000 a month, about $204,000 a year, in our partner book. A business in the $50K to $250K band might be above that or below it, and the report will not guess. A band that spans a floor does not clear it; the category renders as gated with the gap named.
Why the two exact figures help
The formation date and the monthly revenue are the fix. When they are present the report compares the exact figures instead of the bands, and a business at $18,000 a month clears the $17,000 floor that its band could not. Time works the same way: a business formed thirteen months ago clears a 12-month floor on its exact figure while its band, 1 to 2 years, also clears it; a business formed eleven months ago does not, and the report says so with the number of months to wait. The two figures are the difference between a report that describes the band you are in and one that describes your business.
What changes when you edit it
Every answer can be edited at any time in your business settings. Changing the questionnaire counts as a change to your file and unlocks a new analysis, in the same way a new bureau pull does. The most common edits are the ones that move a category: the month the business crosses a time floor, the month revenue crosses a revenue floor, the day the bank account opens. Make the edit, run the analysis, and read the funding stage again.
Which businesses are included
The first business is included with Premium. The questionnaire, the business journey and the business analysis all belong to that plan, and the personal journey continues alongside it.
Open your business settings and check that the formation date and the monthly revenue are filled in and current, because those two fields decide more than the rest of the form together.
This piece is education, not financial or legal advice, and nothing in it is a lender's decision or a promise about your score or an application. Credit scores in the portal are VantageScore® 3.0.