ForwardLine Lending Review

ForwardLine offers short-term loans to small businesses that have been in operation for at least three years. They harness their underwriting algorithm, ForSight, to provide a speeding application and funding process for those who need quick working capital.

ForwardLine offers business loans with relatively affordable rates. To keep their rates affordable, they work with a very specific type of borrower and have strict qualification standards to ensure the borrower is a good fit.

Keep the following criteria in mind to see if you’ll qualify for a ForwardLine loan.

ForwardLine will not work with businesses in the following industries:

• Businesses that are 100% wholesale.
• Businesses that operate as used automobile dealers, real estate agents, or pawn shops.
• Business the adult entertainment, marijuana, lending, or money services industry.
• Businesses that operate out of a home address.

Your financial history will also contribute to your eligibility.

• ForwardLine requires an average bank balance of $1,000. They also require that you have a minimum of seven monthly deposits in your personal or business bank account in order to qualify.
• ForwardLine will not fund businesses that have more than $50,000 in a tax lien. If the borrower has a tax lien below $50,000, ForwardLine will need to see that the borrower is on a payment plan.
• ForwardLine will not fund borrowers with more than three NSF (non-sufficient funds) days in one month.
• ForwardLine only works with previously bankrupt borrowers if one year has passed since the discharge.
• ForwardLine requires any owner of a business that owns more than 70% to be represented before they can fund a loan.
• ForwardLine will fund borrowers for the purpose of refinancing debt, but only if the financing has occurred at least 90 days ago and the existing balance has been paid down by at least 50%.

• 3 months business bank statements
• Voided business check
• Copy of a valid driver’s license

If you’re considering taking out a loan with ForwardLine, keep reading for more details on their application and underwriting process.

To begin your ForwardLine application, you’ll simply have to provide preliminary information, like your Social Security number and your business tax ID. ForwardLine’s ForSight algorithm then pulls data on your business using this information. With this data, ForSight looks for signals that ForwardLine believes to be predictive of stability, and warning signs that indicate your business could be unstable or stressed. All of that information is then put into a ForwardLine ForSight score.

Assuming your score passes, you will need to then provide 3 months of recent bank statements. Upon review of your bank statements, ForwardLine financial will then call you during the underwriting process, because you’ll need to talk to one of ForwardLine’s specialists before qualifying for funding.

When determining the rate that you will get on your financing, ForwardLine considers applicants within their three Credit Grades.

• Credit Grade 1 qualifies for:
  • 20.50% for a 12-month term
  • 17.50% for a 9-month term
  • 15.50% for a 6-month term
• Credit Grade 2 qualifies for:
  • 23.50% on a 12-month term
  • 20.50% on a 9-month term
  • 16.50% on a 6-month term
• Credit Grade 3 qualifies for:
  • 26.50% on a 12-month term
  • 22.50% on a 9-month term
  • 18.50% on a 6-month term

ForwardLine will take second position only if the debt is not associated with a short-term loan or merchant cash advance, and they will approve borrowers for a loan size no greater than 9% of their annual revenue.

If you want to check on the progress of your loan at any point, you’ll have access to an online portal through the ForwardLine website. You will get statements on the progress of your loan through this portal, but you can call your representative if you have other questions on your outstanding loan.

You can also be eligible for a loan renewal from ForwardLine once you’ve paid off 50% of your current loan. If you do choose to renew your current financing, ForwardLine rolls over the current balance to the new product.

If you accept your offer from ForwardLine, they’ll set you up to pay a small amount each day, via ACH. If you qualify for a short-term working capital loan from ForwardLine, you’ll pay a fixed daily amount for your given term length. On the other hand, if you qualify for one of their merchant cash advance products, ForwardLine will take a fixed percentage of your daily credit card sales until they’ve collected in full. In either case, the daily payments will be small and automatically deducted from your bank account. The first payment will be debited the day after you’re funded, and they’ll debit your first payment the day after your application funds.

ForwardLine customer service is available by phone and email.

You can call customer support representatives at (866) 623-4900 on Monday through Friday from 5:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. PST and Saturday and Sunday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. PST.

You can also email support via the contact form here.

Most positive ForwardLine reviews on the interest praise the speed and efficiency of their application process. Plus, ForwardLine reviews from happy customers tend to compliment their customer service and follow-up. Though the terms the ForwardLine attaches to their short-term loans might not be ideal, according to ForwardLine reviews, they certainly make sure you’re taken care of.

Forwardline complaints often mention their compulsory personal guarantee—this piece of fineprint means that any of your personal assets could be up for grabs should you default on your ForwardLine loan.

Another headliner of most ForwardLine complaints is simply that their rates can get really expensive, especially if you fall into their lower credit tiers. The short repayment terms coupled with the high interest rates that ForwardLine extends to less-qualified borrowers are expensive compared to competitors. And the origination fee of 2.5% certainly doesn’t help—this one-off fee only makes the APR on ForwardLine loans that much higher.

Finally, many ForwardLine complaints from customers cite their merchant services as a major problem for their businesses. In order to fund with a ForwardLine merchant advance, you’ll have to use ForwardLine merchant services to process your business’s credit card transactions. According to ForwardLine reviews, these merchant services take way too long to deposit credit card revenues into a business’s bank account.

ForwardLine is not in Fundera’s Lender Network. The Fundera team carefully vets all of the lenders in our network, and have determined that ForwardLine either doesn’t have the technology to work with Fundera or does not offer a financing product that competes with the other lenders in its product class. We suggest considering another lender in this product class.

See if you qualify for similar products in Fundera’s Lender Network.