What Financing Providers May Consider
The short answer
There is no universal scorecard. Different providers weigh different things — a factoring provider looks at your customers' invoices, an equipment provider looks at the machine, a working-capital provider looks at your revenue rhythm. What they share is a search for the same underlying answers: can this purpose be supported, and can this structure work for this business?
Key takeaways
- Different structures are evaluated through different lenses — the asset, the invoices, the transaction, or the operating profile.
- No two providers weigh the same factors the same way, and honest verified numbers matter more than polished ones.
- The factors below are conceptual, not thresholds — BizFin.ca does not publish invented minimums.
Published by BizFin.ca · September 2026
What might a provider consider about the business itself?
When a provider looks at the business profile, common considerations include:
- Time in business — how long the business has operated, as context for stability.
- Revenue level and trend — what the business earns and whether it is growing, flat or seasonal.
- Cash-flow pattern — the rhythm between money out and money in.
- Credit profile — the demonstrated history of the business and, in some structures, its owners.
- Industry — some industries have recognizable cycles, risks and asset values.
- Existing obligations — what the business already owes and on what terms.
What might a provider consider about the request?
Beyond the business, the request itself carries information:
- Requested amount — whether it is proportionate to the business and the stated purpose.
- Purpose — what the money will do, and whether the structure fits that use.
- The asset or transaction — for asset-based structures, the equipment, vehicle, invoice or business being financed.
- Documentation — whether the statements, quotes, invoices or contracts support the request as described.
- Customer concentration — for receivables-based structures, how spread the business's customers are.
Do all providers use the same criteria?
No — and this is one of the most useful things a business owner can understand. The same business can look completely different to two providers simply because they are evaluating different structures. A machine shop with modest revenues and a strong customer list can be an unremarkable working-capital request but a very workable invoice-financing one, because the invoice structure leans on the customers rather than the business alone.
This is also why a decline from one provider is not a verdict on the business — it is an outcome of one request meeting one evaluation.
No provider publishes a formula. Any resource quoting universal minimums — credit scores, revenue floors, time-in-business thresholds — is describing one provider's appetite, not the market's.
What can a business control?
Most of the reviewable picture is within a business's influence: organized statements, an honest description of the purpose, disclosed obligations, and documentation that matches what is being requested. Those things do not guarantee an offer — but their absence can undermine an otherwise workable request.
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