9 Funding Tools and Solutions MCA Funders Should Be Using

In 2024, efficiency and foresight are an MCA funder’s greatest allies. 

Funders face a daily ballet of underwriting, risk management, regulatory compliance, and relationship building—all demanding a level of agility and insight that traditional workflows and technology struggle to provide.

The truth is the right technology can be the lever that moves your merchant cash advance business from good to great, offering that competitive edge crucial for staying ahead. Yet, the sheer number of available tech solutions can make selecting the right tools a daunting process.

Onyx IQ is here to simplify your journey. 

Today’s article unveils nine essential tools and solutions that every MCA funder should incorporate into their tech stack. These handpicked technologies address the core business areas essential to success—from enhancing underwriting accuracy to streamlining customer engagement and adapting to regulatory changes.

Ready to transform your approach and navigate the future of MCA funding with confidence and resilience? 

Let’s dive into the tech that will redefine what’s possible in your MCA operations. 

1. Onyx IQ

Of course, we’d be remiss not to begin with our own solution: Onyx IQ.

Our end-to-end loan management platform enables MCA funders to automate every single aspect of their funding business.

• Streamline the entire lending process: With pre-configured workflows and customizable templates, your process becomes smoother than ever. From initial customer inquiries to final disbursements, you can ensure an efficient journey tailored to your operational needs.
• Maximize reporting capabilities: Track and analyze funding activities—historical data to evaluate performance, reports to monitor ongoing trends, real-time data to make informed decisions, and more—to gain valuable insights into your funding portfolio and drive business forward.
• Benefit from multiple tools in one: From assessing creditworthiness to verifying banking information, processing ACH transactions, and obtaining e-signatures, Onyx IQ brings together all the tools that MCA funders need in one cohesive platform. 

With our platform, you can quickly enhance efficiency, accuracy, and compliance at every step of the funding journey. 

2. DocuSign

DocuSign is a document signing software that allows you to legally—and securely—send, sign, and collect approvals online within minutes. Advantages of this technology include:

• Reduce paperwork: DocuSign eliminates the need for physical documents, saving MCA funders time… and a lot of it.  
• Boost compliance: By providing a comprehensive audit trail with timestamps, signer authentication details, and more, DocuSign helps funders automate their regulatory compliance while also minimizing the risk of disputes.
• Speed up transactions: With DocuSign, MCA stakeholders can sign agreements from anywhere, anytime, eliminating delays and inconveniences associated with traditional paper-based processes and helping MCA funders recoup time to act more swiftly on new opportunities.

Forget about pen and paper: use DocuSign to dot your i’s and cross your t’s in no time. And even better: if you use Onyx IQ, DocuSign is already integrated.

3. Twilio (SMS and Email)

Effective communication is paramount for nurturing client relationships and securing prompt repayments.

With Twilio, you can create and automatically send highly personalized SMS and email messages, fostering smooth interactions with merchant borrowers, every step of the way. Benefits include:

• Implement automated reminders: By setting up automated payment reminders to customers—SMS and/or email—you can significantly reduce missed payments. You’ll get repayments on time, and merchants will avoid associated late fees.
• Distribute promotional incentives: Share personalized promotional offers and incentives with merchants—this can enhance engagement and give them more personalized attention.
• Provide account updates: By tailoring account updates and notifications, funders can ensure merchants remain informed at crucial stages of the funding process—from application to repayment and beyond.

By helping to optimize communication channels, Twilio drastically reduces the need for back-and-forth. It’s an essential tool for improving collaboration, is also powerful for fostering transparent relationships with your merchant customers, and it is integrated with Onyx IQ.

4. CRS

CRS Credit API offers funders a robust platform for all credit reporting services. MCA funders can easily access their clients’ (or potential clients’) credit data to make informed decisions about their funding requests.

Its comprehensive services contribute to more informed credit evaluations, leading to better risk management. With this funding tool, funders gain:

• Quick access to credit data: This includes credit scores, credit histories, and other relevant financial information, empowering MCA funders to make the best decisions based on creditworthiness.
• Efficiency and accuracy: Funders can automate and optimize their credit assessment workflows, leading to increased efficiency and accuracy in evaluating credit profiles.
• Data security and compliance: CRS keeps up with industry regulations, ensuring that funders can confidently use credit data while adhering to legal requirements, and protecting customer privacy.

With CRS, funders can streamline their credit assessment process, and ultimately evaluate funding requests faster and more reliably. Better yet, CRS is fully integrated with the Onyx IQ platform.

5. MoneyThumb

MoneyThumb is a financial data conversion tool that processes bank statements and other documents within mere seconds.

Merchants fill out an online application directly on MoneyThumb, and funders upload additional files. Then, MoneyThumb generates an underwriting scorecard, complete with fraud analysis and a creditworthiness score from 1 to 100. Benefits of this tool include:

• Enhance revenue accuracy: Customize your search by identifying and eliminating transactions (e.g., MCAs, loans, and recovery company payments) that aren’t considered revenue, ensuring precise financial assessments.
• Identify debt obligations: Quickly pinpoint debt payments like loans, revenue-based finance payments, credit card expenses, as well as other financial obligations including accounts payable, tax payments, and accrued expenses.  
• Discover critical risk factors: Find merchants’ negative transactions, including low balance days, presence of multiple MCAs, unreconciled summaries, as well as flags for potential fraud, enabling proactive risk mitigation.

With MoneyThumb, you get a comprehensive understanding of a merchant’s financial liabilities and the health of their business. When combined with the Onyx IQ platform, you get a funding tool that can dramatically improve MCA workflows.  

6. Thomson Reuters Clear

When it comes to fraud, Thomson Reuters Clear does the investigative work for you. It conducts extensive background checks to quickly detect fraud risks, and gives you insights into things like familial and associate connections, ownership details, past incarcerations, arrests, as well as any other negative indicators. Benefits of this funding tool include:

• Strengthen risk analysis: Identify potential red flags and implement risk mitigation strategies before extending funding—safeguard your deals and minimize losses.
• Prevent fraud: Clear analyzes merchants’ backgrounds and transaction histories to detect any suspicious activities—empowering you with the knowledge to allocate resources only to trustworthy borrowers.
• Streamline investigative workflows: With Clear’s comprehensive database and advanced search capabilities, you can quickly access relevant information about your customers, and potential customers.

Together with Onyx IQ, Thomson Reuters Clear’s advanced fraud detection tools and intelligence will save you time and resources while gaining peace of mind. 

7. Plaid

The Plaid digital finance platform enables organizations to access clients’ bank account data in real-time, verify account legitimacy for sending and receiving loans, and ensure merchants have funds available for loan repayment. Benefits include:

• Get instant access to granular data: By accessing real-time bank data, you gain a deeper understanding of a merchant’s financial health and cash flow dynamics.
• Manage potential credit red flags: Plaid facilitates ongoing credit risk management by allowing funders to monitor changes in a merchant’s financial behavior—and to identify potential risks proactively.
• Optimize underwriting efficiency: Plaid’s automated features enhance lenders’ operational efficiency throughout the lending cycle, ensuring an up-to-date view of borrowers’ bank accounts, at any time.

The power of Plaid resides in its robust API infrastructure. With Onyx IQ’s Plaid integration, MCA funders can quickly connect and retrieve the financial data they need to make a funding decision.

8. ACHWorks

With its Automated Clearing House (ACH) capabilities, ACHWorks enables MCA funders to process capital disbursements and repayments efficiently.

This helps to ensure smooth and secure fund transfers between your accounts and those of merchants, improving cash flow management and operational efficiency. Additional benefits of this funding solution include:

• Improve cash flow management: Better predict and manage your cash flow, to ensure that you have sufficient liquidity to meet your funding obligations and operational needs.
• Enhance operational efficiency: Reduce the manual effort required to process transactions, saving time and resources to focus on strategic initiatives and business growth.
• Choose from customizable solutions: Whether you require batch processing, recurring payments,  or real-time transaction monitoring, ACHWorks can provide flexible solutions to accommodate specific requirements.

The magic of ACHWorks is that it simplifies complex financial transactions for your business—without disregarding security. And, yes, it integrates with Onyx IQ. 

9. Actum Processing

Actum Processing operates as a third-party sender of ACH transactions, providing various processing and payment solutions to a wide range of industries, including revenue-based financing.

With its dependable and fast processing capabilities, Actum empowers funders to efficiently handle cash flows. Easily integrated with Onyx IQ, benefits of this funding tool include:

• Use the options you need: Access all kinds of processing options, to keep up with industry demands like real-time payments, same-day ACH, late night processing, sunday night processing, and even holiday processing.
• Explore the freedom of automation: Tailor repayment schedules to your exact specifications with a wide array of frequency options. This way, you can adapt and refine payment schedules as needed, to optimize borrower satisfaction and repayment efficiency.
• Manage payments with confidence: Actum ensures consistent and dependable payment solutions, minimizing the possibility of disruptions and delays in funding transactions.

A healthy and sustainable relationship with your merchants is essential to guarantee ongoing deals. To achieve this, you must up the game when it comes to offering a comprehensive merchant experience. 

A merchant cash advance already gives them the funding flexibility they need. Add to that the payment options Actum Processing can offer, and you’ll be the MCA funder of choice every time. 

Turbocharge Your MCA Tech Stack With Onyx IQ

Incorporating all—or at least some—of the above tools into your MCA tech stack can kickstart a plethora of business-boosting advantages for MCA funders navigating today’s fast-paced landscape.

Each solution can help your operation gain a serious competitive edge in the MCA industry, from supercharging payment processes and fortifying client connections to mitigating fraud risks.

And Onyx IQ is the glue that connects everything, seamlessly integrating all of the tools spotlighted in this article.

Ready to take your MCA funding game to the next level?

Schedule an Onyx IQ demo today and witness firsthand how our end-to-end lending platform can revolutionize your operations, unlock untapped potential, and drive your business to new heights.