CONSTRUCTION & CONTRACTOR FUNDING
Before the bank funds your next project, know what they may question.
4.9/5 based on 10,000+ reviews
$440K is average SBA 7(a) loan to construction firms
of SBA loans go to construction — the #1 borrowing industry
of denials cite "borrower financials" — banks won't say which line
of approved loans are downsized below ask
A signed contract does not automatically make you bankable.
Contractors often lose funding momentum because the bank does not just look at revenue. It looks at timing, repayment, project risk, collections, existing debt, and whether the business can survive the cash gap between work done and cash received.
Progress payments may arrive too late to cover payroll, materials, suppliers, and subcontractors.
Receivables may look strong on paper but weak if customers are slow to pay.
Growth can make the business look riskier if every new project consumes working capital first.
Existing equipment debt, leases, tax liabilities, or merchant cash advances can weaken repayment capacity.
The bank may not understand the project cycle unless the funding story is explained in lender language.
What contractors say vs. what lenders may question.
The same facts can look very different from the lender’s side of the table.
We review your funding request through a contractor credit lens.
This is not a generic business checklist. We focus on the issues that commonly matter in contractor financing.
Project cash flow
We look at whether the project creates a funding gap before it creates repayment cash.
Receivables & collections
We assess whether receivables support the story or create a lender concern.
Debt service capacity
We review whether the business can handle existing debt plus the proposed facility.
Subcontractor exposure
We identify where subcontractor, supplier, and material costs may pressure cash flow.
Customer concentration
We check if the business depends too heavily on one client, project, or payment source.
Funding story
We help clarify why the loan is needed, how it will be used, and how repayment works.
We review your funding request through a contractor credit lens.
This is not a generic business checklist. We focus on the issues that commonly matter in contractor financing.
Project cash flow
We look at whether the project creates a funding gap before it creates repayment cash.
Receivables & collections
We assess whether receivables support the story or create a lender concern.
Debt service capacity
We review whether the business can handle existing debt plus the proposed facility.
Subcontractor exposure
We identify where subcontractor, supplier, and material costs may pressure cash flow.
Customer concentration
We check if the business depends too heavily on one client, project, or payment source.
Funding story
We help clarify why the loan is needed, how it will be used, and how repayment works.
Know the lender questions before your file goes in.
A simple process designed for busy owners, contractors, and finance teams.
Share your numbers
Upload your financials, debt schedule, loan purpose, and basic project or pipeline information.
We review the file
We assess the funding request using lender-style questions around cash flow, debt, receivables, and repayment.
You get the verdict
You receive the likely concerns, weak points, and what to fix before approaching a bank or lender.
Choose the level of review your construction funding situation deserves.
For smaller checks, serious applications, high-stakes project funding, and deeper consultation.
Investment Banking-Grade Loan Check
For contractors who want a quick professional read before applying.
- Basic loan purpose review
- Initial financial and debt check
- Top lender concerns
- Quick readiness view
- 15-minute explanation call
Investment Banking-Grade Credit Review
For serious construction loan, working capital, equipment, or SBA applications.
- Financial statement review
- Debt and repayment capacity review
- Project cash flow review
- Receivables and working capital review
- Written credit review summary
- 30-minute explanation call
Investment Banking-Grade Funding Strategy
For contractors who need to strengthen the file before the bank reviews it.
- Everything in Credit Review
- Prioritized fix-list
- Funding story refinement
- Lender question preparation
- 90-minute strategy call
- Optional accountant, CFO, or broker call
Full Investment Banking-Grade Consultation
For high-stakes project funding, refinancing, or urgent lender situations.
- Everything in Funding Strategy
- 3 months of private consultation
- Up to 5 private sessions
- Review of lender follow-up questions
- Help shaping responses
- Priority response window
Find out your verdict before the bank does.
Know where your construction loan file stands — and what could delay, reduce, or reject it — before the application goes in.
Get your construction funding reviewMost bankers don't underwrite construction. They underwrite businesses, and yours doesn't fit.
A commercial banker sees a hundred files a year. Maybe four are construction. The patterns that define healthy GCs and specialty trades look like red flags to anyone outside the industry — and you pay for that misread.
Your balance sheet looks chaotic because the job hasn't closed yet.
Under percentage-of-completion accounting, your WIP schedule shows costs and earnings that haven't fully cleared as receivables. To a generalist banker, "costs in excess of billings" reads as a problem. To a construction analyst, it's just Tuesday.
If your file isn't presented with the WIP schedule front and center, the underwriter is making a decision on numbers that don't tell your real story.
The bank thinks your A/R is stale. It's just contract.
5–10% retention held for 60–120 days past project completion is industry standard — but it ages your receivables in a way that triggers every aging-analysis alarm in a generic credit model.
Without context, retention looks like collection failure. A construction-literate analyst splits it out and explains why your A/R aging chart looks the way it does.
Your bonding line and your bank line aren't talking to each other.
Your surety has approved you for $5M aggregate. Your bank thinks you can barely service $400k of debt. Both are looking at the same financials and reaching opposite conclusions — because they use different models, different ratios, different ratios in different ways.
The bank doesn't know to ask about your bonding capacity. We surface it as a credibility signal in the file.
Owners think the bank will understand draw schedules. It won't.
Your monthly cash flow is lumpy because draws follow milestones, not calendar months. To a banker running a DSCR calc on trailing 12 months, lumpy means risky — even when the annual numbers are fine.
The fix isn't to change how you bill. It's to recast the cash flow into a format that shows underlying repayment capacity, which most CPAs don't bother doing.
The numbers your banker should be looking at — and probably isn’t.
Generic credit analysis runs DSCR, leverage, current ratio. Construction underwriting layers a different set of ratios on top — ones that show whether a contractor can actually deliver.
Backlog-to-revenue
Your signed backlog divided by trailing 12-month revenue. Above 1.0x says you're booked solid; below 0.5x signals trouble ahead. Banks rarely ask. We always do.
WIP profit-fade
Whether your estimated gross profit on open jobs is trending up or down quarter-over-quarter. Fade signals weak estimating discipline or runaway costs. A controllable problem if caught early.
Bonding capacity utilization
Your current bonded aggregate as a percentage of your surety-approved line. Below 60% means room to grow; above 85% means you're capacity-constrained — which is itself a financing opportunity, not a problem.
Retention as % of A/R
The portion of receivables that's retention vs current invoices. Banks running generic A/R aging will mistake high retention for collection failure. The split needs to be explicit in the file.
Cost-to-complete vs cash on hand
Your remaining job costs to finish all open projects, against your liquidity. The single most predictive number for a construction lender — and the one almost never presented in standard financials.
Change order discipline
The ratio of approved change orders to total contract value, and how fast they're getting signed. Slow CO discipline shows up as a working-capital crunch even when the job is profitable.
Same business. Two completely different reads.
Here's how the same GC's file gets evaluated by a generalist commercial banker versus a credit analyst who reads construction.
Westridge Construction Group LLC
General contractor · commercial buildouts & tenant improvements
$6.2M revenue · 11 employees · 9 years in business
Loan request: $750,000 (equipment + working capital)
Five things that turn your file from declined to funded.
Rebuild your WIP schedule into a bank-readable format.
Job-by-job: contract value, billed to date, costs to date, estimated cost to complete, gross profit, percent complete, billing status. This becomes the centerpiece of your file — not the back-of-binder afterthought it usually is.
Separate retention from current A/R, explicitly.
Two A/R aging schedules: current invoices where the bank should focus, and retention receivables with contractual release dates. Kills the "stale A/R" objection before it gets raised.
Bring your surety into the credit story.
Document your bonding line, aggregate utilization, and surety relationship. This is a credibility signal a bank can verify in 10 minutes — and it shifts the conversation from "can we trust this operator" to "the surety already does."
Recast lumpy monthly cash flow into trailing-12 and annualized views.
The banker's spreadsheet wants smooth monthly cash flow. Yours is draw-driven. We present it both ways — with the construction reality explained alongside the bank's preferred view.
Route you to a bank that actually underwrites construction.
Some regional banks have dedicated construction officers and built-in WIP analysis. Most don't. Submitting to the wrong bank wastes 90 days and burns a relationship. We name the right ones for your size and trade.
The right structure for your specific ask.
Equipment? SBA 504 with longer term, lower payment. Working capital with seasonal swings? Revolving line. Real estate? Different program entirely. Most owners apply for the wrong loan type — sometimes because their banker doesn't know the alternatives.
You’re the right fit if you’re any of these.
General contractors
Commercial buildouts, ground-up construction, design-build, tenant improvement. $1M–$25M annual revenue.
Specialty trades
HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, concrete, glazing, mechanical. Especially with significant bonded work.
Civil & site work
Excavation, grading, utilities, paving. Equipment-heavy operators with cyclical seasonality.
Government & public contractors
Federal, state, municipal contracts. SBA 8(a), HUBZone, SDVOSB-certified firms. Government receivables financing.
Growing residential builders
Spec or contract home builders moving into commercial work, scaling from $2M to $10M+, or expanding regions.
Construction services & supply
Equipment rental, materials supply, prefab, modular. Inventory-heavy operators with construction-specific A/R patterns.