How do I consolidate multiple merchant cash advances?
True consolidation replaces several positions with one, reducing the number of daily debits. Be careful to distinguish it from reverse consolidation, which deposits money to cover existing debits without removing them — that adds a layer of obligation rather than reducing it.
Start an applicationIn a genuine consolidation, the incoming funder pays out the existing balances directly and the old debits stop. The test is simple and worth applying literally: after closing, how many daily debits hit the account? If the answer is one, it was a consolidation. If the old debits continue and a new deposit arrives to help cover them, it was not.
Reverse consolidation is sometimes the right tool for a specific short-term squeeze, but it must be presented accurately. It does not reduce total obligation — it adds to it, while easing daily pressure for a period. Any description of it as 'consolidating your debt' is wrong, and worth treating as a signal about the party describing it that way.
Run the real cost before agreeing to either. On a consolidation the number that matters is the incremental obligation on new money: new payback minus the balances being cleared, over the cash actually disbursed. Unearned fees on the old balances frequently get re-factored into the new paper, so the effective cost on the money you actually receive can be far higher than the quoted factor suggests.
What happens, in order
- Application — under ten minutes, no fee, no credit impact
- Documents — six months of business bank statements is the standard request
- Lender review — the file is matched to the products it actually qualifies for
- Funding — 24 to 72 hours for working capital once a structure is signed