Maggie Evans 
If you have tried to get a small business loan and been denied, more than once, it may be time to look for a different source of funds. It is not suggested that you go do anything illegal or run down and talk to the local loan shark. You need to analyze why you were not given the loan. If it was because your credit score was not quite high enough you may want to consider funding your business with credit cards.
If this is the only way that you can fund a startup business or add funds to a business that needs a push, you will want to check your current credit cards. It does not have to be just your business ones, because you can separate them from the bills as you go, for your bookkeeping requirements. If you have the ability, get a few more. Use a comparison platform such as the iSelect credit card compare site. Ones with high limits and low interest rates, as low as possible anyway.
When you take the money out of your personal accounts you need to treat them like a loan. Have a payment cycle set up, that is more than the minimum amounts, and follow it without fail. The money taken from your personal accounts need to be paid back with regular installments. You may want to add some interest as well. Check with your local tax person and see if it can be written off as a business loan expense.
You will only want to take the amount of money that you need, not more just because it is there. As stated above, play it off like this is a loan from a lender. You would not want to borrow more money than you wanted from them, so do not do it if you are the lender. You are a separate entity from the business, so they need to be kept separately.
It is imperative that you follow a few basic rules of credit card use. If you cannot, then you do not want to rack your cards up to give the business the capital that it needs. Let us go over them quickly.
- Always pay more than the minimum amount due. This amount is usually only enough to cover the interest. This is how they get extra money from you because the actual balance will never go down if you are only paying on the interest.
- Make your payments on time. Every time you make a payment before the due date the balance will go down before the company adds interest charges on. This not only prevents added amounts of interest, but it will help pay the balance down quicker.
- Do not keep using them. Once you have gotten your advance from them put them aside and pay them off as quickly as possible. Credit cards are not like a traditional loan. They will charge you interest every month, not a one-time amount like an actual lender. The longer it takes you to pay the balance off, the more money that you will end having to fork over, out of your profits.
That is the basics of using a credit card to fund your business. It can be a terrific way to get the capital that you need, as long as you keep it under control. The biggest reason that a new business fails is due to finances. Using your cards to fund your adventure may seem like a clever idea at the time, but it may end up causing you more harm than good. Analyze your specific situation and make a commonsense judgement on whether you can actually pay it all back, plus interest, or not.
