Fora Financial Review

Pros

• Relaxed credit score requirements
• Discounts for repaying early
• Suited for quick business financing
• The application process is fast and easy

Cons

• Rates can be expensive
• Some additional fees charged
• Repayments are required frequently

What Is Fora Financial?

Fora Financial is an alternative lender that offers relatively fast funding with relaxed credit qualifications. Fora Financial provides merchant cash advances and short-term loans to small businesses.

Services Offered By Fora Financial

Fora Financial offers two short-term lending products.

• Merchant Cash Advances (MCA) are an agreement wherein the funder purchases a percentage of your future daily credit card sales for a lump sum. The funder then “holds back” a percentage of your card-based sales each day until the advance terms are fulfilled.
• Short-Term Loans (STL) are loans with a term length of usually less than a year. Short-term loans use flat fees rather than interest rates and are repaid daily or weekly.

While these two products are versatile and offer high borrowing amounts, they effectively limit Fora Financial’s niche to short-term lending. Customers can log-in to their account through the Fora Financial website. Overall, we rate Fora Financial’s service offerings 3.5/5.

Fora Financial Borrower Qualifications

Fora Financial’s lenient borrowing qualifications make it accessible to most small businesses, provided they have strong sales and cash flow. The required business revenue is fairly steep at $20,000/month, which brought down the lender’s score to 4.2/5 for eligibility requirements.

Fora Financial requires a minimum personal credit score of 570 to qualify for funding. This company does a hard credit check on your personal score to help determine your terms.

Additionally, Fora Financial does not lend to businesses in the following industries:

• Accounting
• Adult entertainment
• Auto sales
• Financial institutions
• Gambling
• Lawyers
• Nonprofits
• Real estate sales

Finally, your business cannot be in open bankruptcy or have closed a bankruptcy case within the last year.

Fora Financial Interest Rates & Fees

Fora Financial’s rates and fees are fairly typical for short-term subprime business lending, but thankfully without shady hidden fees like prepayment penalties. Still, we’d like to see a little more transparency out of Fora in this department. Fora Financial gets a 3.2/5 for rates and fees.

Revenue Advances

Fora Financial’s Revenue Advance is a merchant cash advance. Merchant cash advances, which are technically purchases of a percentage of your future card-based sales and not loans, are repaid through a daily deduction of a percentage of your card sales (which are usually variable), so there is no true term length. Unlike most merchant cash advances, Fora Financial’s Revenue Advance offers weekly payment plans in addition to the standard daily option.

Instead of charging interest, Fora Financial charges a one-time factor rate (sometimes called a “buy rate” or “flat fee”). To understand how much you’re paying, multiply the rate by the principal. For example, if you’re borrowing $50K and have a factor rate of 1.2 (or 20%, as it’s often written), you’ll have to repay $60K: $50,000 x 1.2 = $60,000.

In most cases, you’ll be making daily payments. In the case of advances, these payments will be a percentage of your card-based sales for the day.

Even though the factor rate is often communicated as a percentage, it’s not the same as APR. Generally, the shorter your term length, the higher your APR — even if you’re still repaying $0.20 in fees for every dollar borrowed.

Small Business Loans

Fora Financial’s small business loans are short-term loans. Short-term loans, unlike MCAs, are technically loans; however, their terms are different than what you might be used to with traditional installment loans.

As with merchant cash advances, you’ll get charged a flat fee rather than a traditional interest rate. You’ll also be making regular payments, typically daily, until your loan is paid off. In this case, however, these will be flat payments deducted from a business account rather than a percentage of your daily sales.

Normally, with this type of loan, you would not save money by repaying early because the fee is only calculated when the loan is disbursed. However, Fora Financial does offer a discount for repaying early, as low as $1.10 for every dollar still owed.

Application Process

Fora Financial has an expedited application process consisting of a one-page form. A representative will call for more information, including monthly sales, how long you’ve been in business, and pertinent contact information. They’ll also answer any questions you might have. At this point, they’ll do a soft pull on your personal credit and provide you with an estimated quote detailing your potential fees, options, and term lengths.

If you wish to continue the process, they’ll send your application through underwriting to verify and finalize your information. If everything checks out, you’ll be officially approved, and the money will be wired into your bank account. Final approval can arrive within 24 hours, with funds landing in your account as soon as 72 hours later.

Additional documents you may be asked for include:

• Three months of credit card statements (for merchant cash advances)
• Three months of bank statements
• Some applicants may be asked to submit tax returns, a balance sheet, or a P&L

We like how simple and fast Fora Financial’s application process is. Its funding timeline is slightly slower than many of its similarly situated competitors. Overall, we give Fora Financial 4.3/5 for its application process.

Sales & Advertising Transparency

Fora Financial falls somewhere in the middle of the pack for alternative lenders when it comes to transparency. You’ll find information about qualifications and repayment on the company’s website, but not much about specific rates.

Overall, there’s not too much of the obfuscation and fluff that tends to plague fintech websites. Fora Financial gets a slightly above-average 3.2/5 for sales and advertising transparency.

Customer Service & Technical Support

Many customers cite the company’s customer service as a high point of working with Fora Financial. Reviewers claim that the company is honest, transparent, easy to get a hold of, and not overbearing or trying too hard to make a sale. Self-service resources and avenues of contact are somewhat limited, however, resulting in an average 2.8/5 rating for customer service.

Fora Financial User Reviews

Overall, user complaints about Fora Financial are minimal, and the company has maintained a generally positive reputation, which is something of a feat for a lender in its niche. We rate Fora Financial 3.9/5 for user reviews.

Negative Reviews & Complaints

Fora Financial has a presence on the Better Business Bureau website, where the company holds an A+ rating and 7 complaints closed over the past three years. It has 12 customer reviews with an average rating of 3.09/5 stars. Additionally, there are a few reviews on Yelp and Google.

Here’s what people don’t like about the service:

• Expensive Capital: Financing from Fora Financial is not cheap.
• Potentially High Origination Fee: Fora Financial charges between 1% - 4% for origination fees (before wiring your capital along to you, the company will take a percentage cut of it). At the high end, this fee can be pretty punishing.
• Sales Pressure: A few customers complained that they felt railroaded into completing an application after contact with Fora Financial. Additionally, several customers complained about unsolicited pre-approval notices sent to them. Some applicants also complained that they didn’t qualify for the advertised terms.

Positive Reviews & Testimonials

As you might expect, Fora Financial has numerous testimonials on its website. You can also find customer reviews on Yelp, Google, and Trustpilot.

Customers are happiest with:

• Customer Service: Most customers posting positive reviews found Fora Financial’s customer service helpful and responsive.
• Fast Funding: Customers appreciated the speed and ease with which they received funding.
• Easy Qualifications: Customers with poor or little credit appreciated that the company was still willing to work with them.

Is Fora Financial The Right Lender For Your Business?

With its borrowing amounts bumped up to $1.5 million and the introduction of a more flexible merchant cash advance, Fora Financial remains a very competitive, if not superlative, lender in the alternative loan industry, one that we give an overall rating of 3.6/5 stars. With its lenient borrower qualifications and high rates, we’d generally recommend Fora Financial specifically to borrowers looking for the best business loans for bad credit.

As always, Merchant Maverick encourages our readers to compare loan offers to make sure you’re getting the best deal you can.

Business Loan & Funding Products Review Methodology

Merchant Maverick has been researching and reviewing business lenders since 2015. Our writers have tested over a hundred different funding products, including traditional term loans, online loans, lines of credit, start-up loans, merchant cash advances, and equipment financing. In each review, we evaluate rates and fees, services, eligibility requirements, application process, sales and advertising transparency, customer service, and user reviews.

Read more about how we rate business loans and funding products.

When comparing different lenders and loan products, we consider many data points, including the ease and transparency of the application process, interest rates, repayment structure, sales ethics, time to funding, revenue and time in business qualifications, and credit score requirements. Our lists of the best funding products include only those we’ve deemed worthwhile from multiple vantage points, and often share qualities such as widespread accessibility across fifty states, low rates, flexible requirements, and competitive borrowing amounts.

We spend an average of 10-15 hours researching and updating each one of our lists, making sure the loans and funding products included meet our internal standards for quality and reputation.

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Fora Financial	Apply Now

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Fora Financial for yourself.

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Fora Financial	Apply Now

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Fora Financial for yourself.