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Directors often delay applying while they chase paperwork they think lenders expect: last year's accounts from the accountant, a business plan polished over a weekend, a spreadsheet of forecasts. For our application, none of those is required. Here is the definitive split between what we genuinely need and what you can stop preparing — and why the shorter list is not a lower standard.
What we do not ask for
- Filed or management accounts. Statutory accounts describe a year that ended months ago — for a small company, sometimes eighteen months ago by the time they are filed. They are the past, filtered. We assess the repayments against the company's current cash position, which accounts cannot show.
- A business plan. Plans describe intentions. Lending against intentions is how loans end up unaffordable, so we do not ask for one and would not weight one if sent. The bank account shows what the business does, not what it hopes.
- Revenue forecasts or cash-flow projections. Same principle: a projection is an argument, not evidence.
- VAT returns, tax computations, contracts with customers. Not required.
- Anything about you personally beyond photo ID: no payslips, no personal bank statements, no personal credit report. See do you credit-check the director personally.
What we actually use instead
Three things, all of which most directors can produce in one sitting — the full checklist with tips is in what documents you need to apply:
- Photo ID for the identity and anti-money-laundering check on the applying director.
- The company's registration number, so we can identify it on the Companies House register and run a business credit check on the entity.
- Roughly six months of business bank activity, via read-only Open Banking (fastest) or uploaded PDF statements.
The reason this shorter list is not a softer test: the bank account is the one document a business cannot dress up. It shows real receipts, real outgoings, real returned payments, in date order, produced by a third party. Six months of it answers the affordability question more honestly than any pack of prepared documents — which is precisely why it is the evidence we read, signal by signal, as set out in what affordability signals matter.
Where the confusion comes from
The accounts-and-business-plan expectation is real — it belongs to other kinds of finance. A bank term loan over five years, a commercial mortgage, or an application to the British Business Bank's programmes will typically want accounts, forecasts and a plan, because long money reasonably asks long questions. A short-term facility measured in weeks is assessed on short evidence: what the account is doing now. Matching the evidence to the term is the whole logic. If what your business needs is five-year money, prepare the fuller pack and approach the right product for it — our comparison of bridging loans, term loans and credit facilities is a reasonable starting point.
One thing worth preparing anyway
Not for us — for you. Before borrowing, be able to state in one sentence what the money is for and how the repayments fit the company's normal month. If that sentence is hard to write, the problem is not paperwork. A short-term loan is expensive money. If the sentence will not come, read when not to take a short-term business loan before you apply.
We lend to UK limited companies and LLPs for business purposes, which sits outside FCA consumer-credit regulation under Article 60B FSMA RAO 2001 and is not covered by the Financial Ombudsman Service or the FSCS. Current amounts, terms and costs are on our business loans page.