Submission etiquette: the rules lenders expect you to follow

A funder's ISO desk remembers which brokers send clean files and which ones waste their time. Brokers with a good reputation get faster reads, more exceptions and better pricing. Brokers with a bad one get the slowest underwriter, or a polite note that the funder is "restructuring its ISO program". These rules are what reputation is made of.

The merchant decides who sees their file. Before you submit, tell them which lenders you plan to send it to, or at least how many and what kind, and get a clear yes. Write down that you did. Sending statements and an application to lenders the merchant never heard of is a breach of their trust, and often of your own application's terms and the funder's ISO agreement.

• Report true revenue, not total deposits. If you quote deposits, say so. Underwriters recalculate anyway, and an inflated number makes every other number in your email suspect.
• Disclose every open position. List each one with its payment and frequency. A position the underwriter finds on its own looks hidden, even if it was an honest miss.
• Explain the blemishes. An NSF spike during a slow month, a new account, a recent advance: say what happened. Lenders forgive problems more easily than surprises.
• Never edit a document. Statements go out exactly as the bank issued them. Altered statements are fraud, and funders share what they find.

• PositionsA position is one open cash advance on a merchant's account, numbered in the order taken: first position, second position and so on.
• True revenueTrue revenue is a merchant's real monthly sales on the bank statements: total deposits minus transfers, loan and MCA proceeds, refunds, reversals and owner money.
• DataMerchDataMerch is an industry database where MCA funders and brokers report and look up merchants with defaults, fraud or stacking problems before funding.

Each funder should hear about a deal from exactly one person at your shop. When two of your reps send the same merchant to the same lender, the funder sees a disorganized shop, and if two different ISOs send the same deal, most funders honor whichever arrived first. Before submitting, check whether anyone at your shop already sent this merchant to that lender, and whether the merchant mentioned working with another broker.

Know each lender's normal turnaround and wait for it. If a lender usually answers in four hours, a follow-up at the end of the day is reasonable. A follow-up after twenty minutes is not. When you need a fast answer because the merchant has a real deadline, say so in the submission, once, with the reason.

• Answer stip requests the same day. A deal that sits waiting on your side drops in the queue.
• If the merchant takes another offer, tell the other lenders and withdraw. They stop spending time on it, and they remember that you told them.
• Do not use one lender's offer to pressure another unless the offer is real and the merchant wants you to.

Every submission in Ferrylend records the lender, who sent it, when, and which documents went with it, so anyone can check whether a merchant has already gone to a lender before sending again. The submission builder marks a lender with an earlier submission on the deal for resubmission rather than a fresh send, and the Submissions page lists every open submission across deals, filterable by lender and status. See submissions to lenders and the audit trail.