A merchant cash advance (MCA) is not a loan. Instead, it is an advance payment against your business’ future credit card sales. The way a MCA works is that a provider will deposit a lump sum money into your account which you will repay by transferring a percentage of your daily credit card receipts.

This percentage is called as the “holdback” and can range between 5% to 20%. The holdback percentage is decided by taking in three variables namely:

Purchase new stock: An excellent way to use a merchant cash advance is to expand your small business’s inventory and introduce new products or services. Getting quick and easy financial aid can be helpful for improving your product range, thereby increasing sales and reaching out to new target audiences.

Purchase machinery or equipment: Merchant cash advances are great sources of small-capital for purchasing new pieces of equipment or machinery. Small manufacturing companies can fuel their production by using MCAs to upgrade their existing machinery.

Product development: Merchant cash advances can be effectively used by businesses and small manufacturers to design, develop and test new and innovative product ranges. MCAs can be great for funding the research and development departments of small businesses.

Open another branch: Businesses can use merchant cash advances for obtaining the capital required to set up branches in other prime locations. This will also improve the business’ customer reach considerably.

Spend on marketing: Merchant cash advances can be used for funding a business’ marketing budget. Good marketing strategies are extremely essential for cutting through rigorous competition in the market. MCAs can thus be very useful for executing effective marketing and advertising campaigns such as flyers, hoardings, social media promotions, TV commercials or celebrity endorsements.