Since the time of the Great Recession, small businesses have been seeing a lot of bad news, including not being able to get any loans from banks. Thanks to all of this, the small businesses have been losing a great deal of their customers and have begun to have reduced sales. Most of the small businesses are now starting to have mass-layoffs due to the lack of work and the lack of money to pay them. Many of them have even lost their most valued supply lines. The most important thing that they have lost is the ability to get business loans and business credit, thanks to the loss of their credit.

It seems now that no bank is even willing to deal with a small business anymore, no matter how good their credit may be. That is the reason why so many small businesses are looking into the alternatives that there are for business loans. Some of the alternatives that are available to small businesses that can replace the need for a loan are as follows:

1. Purchase Order Financing- Having a lot in common with factoring, but still staying one step ahead of it, purchase order financing is where they make the guarantee that there will be an order of a purchaser to the products of the company. They will make sure to give the money needed for the manufacturing of the product at hand and after that they will receive their profits off of the product and give the rest of the money earned to the company.

2. Merchant Cash Advances- Merchant cash advances are put into use using the following rules, when there is a deal made and the company decides to get a merchant cash advance, an agreement that becomes the goal is what is known as the purchase and sale that comes from credit card income in the future. There are never any fixed payments that are a regular occurrence for the company. All that happens is a portion of whatever the amount of sales the company has made in the day with credit cards goes directly to the lender. These types of advances are able to keep a small business running, but they can become a little too much in terms of money out of pocket.

3. Hard Money Loans- This type of loan is not like the normal loans that a business can get, it does not go off of credit scores, it instead is based on what ever collateral the company has to offer. This type of alternative to bank loans is not something that most small business owners want to do, because of all of the risks that are involved with it. However, it can be exactly the right alternative for some small businesses.