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Business Loan Terms
At Fundvisor, we’ve seen too many business owners fall victim to lousy loan terms and high interest rates. We don’t want you to walk into the same trap, so we’ve put together this guide to common loan terms.
Principal
Principal is the amount you borrow. If you get a $10,000 loan, then your principal is $10,000.
You pay back more than $10,000, however, due to interest (explained later).
Loan Term
The loan term is the length of time over which you’ll pay back the loan. If you had to pay back that $10,000 loan in five years, then five years would be the loan term.
Interest Rate
Interest is an additional amount you pay back to the lender. It’s how lenders make money, and it helps them get something if you don’t pay the loan back.
Think of interest as the cost of money.
Your interest rate is the percentage used to calculate how much interest you pay, based on the principal.
Simple Interest
Simple interest is interest that isn’t added to the principal. To calculate your total simple interest, just multiply the principal by the interest rate. A $10,000 loan at 5% interest would cost you $500 in interest, for example.
Compound Interest
Compound interest is added to the principal at regular intervals — such as days, weeks, months, or every year.
For instance, let’s say the $10,000, 5% interest loan compounds monthly. That loan becomes $10,500 in one month.
Annual Percentage Rate (APR)
The APR is simply the interest rate plus other costs of borrowing money, such as fees.
Factor Rate
Factor rate is a simpler version of interest rate used for some types of financing. It’s a decimal number between 1.1 and 1.9 used to determine the total amount you pay back.
For example, a $10,000 loan with a 1.2 factor rate means you’ll pay back $12,000 in total.
Amortization
Most loans are amortized. This means you make fixed monthly payments of principal plus interest over the term of the loan. The lender adds a fixed amount of interest to the principal, then divides that over the term length to arrive at your monthly payment.
Loan payments are weighted towards interest at first since you have more principal remaining. As you pay down principal, there’s less principal to charge interest on — therefore, that same monthly payment becomes more weighted towards
To illustrate: your $600 on might be paying 5% on $10,000 at first — $500 of that payment is interest, with the leftover going to principal. But when the principal is $5,000, only $250 of your payment goes to interest — meaning more goes to the principal.
At Fundvisor, we handle the stress of the funding application process for you. Thanks to our trusted network of over 150 banks, we can match you to a lender that has what you need fast and get you the best loan terms. Talk to us today if you’re looking for quick and affordable financing.