As credit has tightened, more and more small business owners are having trouble expanding or growing their businesses. Other small businesses are making tough choices that range from laying off workers to  decreasing products and services. Some may even have to restructure completely or go bankrupt. All of these hard decisions stem mostly from an inability to obtain the necessary funding in a lending climate that has grown somewhat anemic with the advent of the recession. There are still alternatives to get funding during tough times and one of these is merchant cash advances.

Spur Business Growth

A very smart use for the merchant cash advance is to use it in an area that will help to expand your business model and create more profit for your business. By implementing growth strategies, you can easily afford to pay back the cash advance with the six month time frame and still be reaping the benefits of better income months after you’ve settled your account.

Bridging Payroll Gaps

Another great application a merchant cash advance is to help bridge cash shortfalls in your business. Typically, most business owners would seek lines of credits to help them with these temporary shortfalls, but even these lending instruments are seeing credit lines reduced or eliminated for small business owners. However, that doesn’t mean the gap goes away, instead it becomes an even bigger headache. To cover this gap, one can get a merchant cash advance based on the credit card receivables of future sales.

Restructure To More Profitable Model

If you want to restructure or implement new lines of revenue, any change in your business model is going take some cash, if you want to avoid laying off employees. A business cash advance can provide the necessary capital to retool your business to help you survive the changing market place. You may have to change some of your credit card processors to be able to take advantage of a merchant cash advance, but that can be included in the cost of your restructuring. Once the necessary equipment is in place, it will act very nearly like your regular processors except that now you can send a percentage of each credit card sale to your advance lender to help repay the advance you received. As a way to restructure, it is less intrusive than trying to reduce staff while maintaining a level of business that can generate the income that you need to stay afloat. Instead, you would simply tweak the business model a bit to allow your future sales to help finance present day restructuring costs.