If you've ever played poker, you probably know that  “tell” is an unspoken and often unknown communication made by a player about his hand. The other players use tells they pick up on to interpret what the cards the “telling” player has showing compared to their own hand. A tell is usually signaling either power or weakness.

Loan application packages have tells too.

For many growing companies, new pieces of equipment can represent not only significant costs, but significant opportunities. Certain pieces of equipment offer not only increased capacity or efficiency, but sometimes even entirely new lines of business. So it’s important that a company understand the differences between leasing and buying equipment, and the advantages that both can provide.

Using credit wisely is an important part of managing a business. Properly financing a purchase can be as important as the quality of the product you purchase. In banking, lending officers use a rule that states “long term capital needs should be financed with long term debt, and short term capital needs should be financed with short term debt. “ Let’s look closely at those terms:

This article addresses collection of business accounts (B2B transactions). If you extend credit terms to consumers you must follow a very large set of rules set forth by the Federal Trade Commission and possibly (if you are a Texas business) the Texas Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner.

No business should sell to other businesses on credit without having a credit policy. Banks don’t loan money without a written policy in place and neither should you. Your business may not want to be in the lending business but if you offer terms other than cash you are a lender and need to protect your company from slow and non-paying customers.