Keelpark Capital Group, a small-business funding broker in Jackson, Tennessee, compares six funding types for Madison County owners: working capital, term loans, lines of credit, inventory financing, equipment financing and merchant cash advances (not a loan). The right choice depends on what the money pays for and how it will be repaid. Lending partners decide and set the terms.
Side by side
| Type | How you receive it | How it goes back | Fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Working capital | Lump sum | Fixed installments over a short term | A cash gap with a known end date |
| Term loan | Lump sum | Scheduled installments of principal and interest | A defined project or purchase |
| Line of credit | Draws up to a limit | Payments on the drawn balance; repaid amounts reopen | Recurring, uneven needs |
| Inventory financing | Advance against stock | Paid down as goods sell | Buying stock before selling it |
| Equipment financing | Paid to the vendor, or a lease | Installments over the asset's working life | A specific machine or system |
| Merchant cash advance | Lump sum for a share of future receipts | Collected from sales or by fixed debits; not a loan | Card-heavy businesses, after the alternatives are compared |
Partners design their own versions of each, so treat the table as a map, not a description of any offer.
Short-term money or long-term money?
Match the length of the financing to the life of what it buys. Payroll, a supplier invoice or a slow month is used up within weeks, so stretching it over years means paying interest long after the benefit is gone. A building fit-out or an oven that will run for a decade is the opposite case: squeezing it into a few months creates payments the business cannot comfortably carry.
Working capital and most lines of credit are short-term tools. Term loans and equipment financing usually run longer. Inventory financing follows the selling cycle of the goods. A merchant cash advance has no term at all in the loan sense; its length depends on how fast receipts are collected.
Secured, unsecured, and the paperwork behind both
Secured financing is backed by collateral the partner can claim after a default, such as equipment, inventory, receivables or real estate. Unsecured products still tend to come with a personal guarantee from the owners and a UCC financing statement filed against business assets. In practice, the word unsecured often means no specific asset is pledged, not that nothing is at stake.
Before you sign anything, search your business name in the state's UCC records so you know what is already filed. Our Tennessee UCC lien guide shows how to search, how to read a filing, and how a paid-off lien is cleared.
Where SBA loans fit
SBA-backed loans are made by banks and other lenders that take part in U.S. Small Business Administration programs, not by the SBA itself. Keelpark Capital Group is not an SBA lender and does not make SBA loans. If an SBA route looks right for you, the SBA's Tennessee District Office page is the official starting point; on 2026-10-15 it listed an office reachable at 901-494-6906 covering Madison County along with nine other West Tennessee counties. How to get a business loan in Tennessee covers where SBA programs sit among the other choices.
Four questions that narrow it down
- What exactly will the money buy? An asset, a stretch of operating costs, stock, or a project.
- How long will that purchase earn its keep? Weeks, a season, or years.
- What will repay it? A particular contract, ordinary monthly revenue, or the sale of the goods themselves.
- Can the business carry the payment in its slowest month? Not its average month. The affordability calculator helps you test this.
If the answer to the last question is no, more financing is unlikely to fix the problem, and a review of costs and pricing may help more. The free advisers at the Tennessee SBDC office in Jackson, TN are one place to do that.
What partners commonly look at
- Recent business bank statements: deposit size and regularity, balances and overdrafts
- Time in business and the entity's standing with the Tennessee Secretary of State
- Business and personal credit history
- Existing debts, including any advances and the UCC filings behind them
- For secured products, the collateral: an equipment quote, an inventory list or a receivables report
Each partner applies its own criteria. What happens during underwriting explains how a file is reviewed.
By Keelpark Capital Group · Updated