Before You Borrow: A Small Business Loan Readiness Checklist for Guyana

A loan can grow a good business or sink a shaky one. The deciding factor is usually how ready you were before you borrowed — both in the eyes of the lender and in the health of your own books. This is a practical checklist to run through before you apply, whether you're going to a commercial bank, the Small Business Bureau's guarantee programme, or the announced development bank.

What lenders want to see

Lenders are answering one quiet question: "will this person pay us back?" Everything they ask for is a way of getting to that answer. Have these ready and you're ahead of most applicants:

1. A properly registered business — business name or company registration, a TIN from the GRA, and NIS registration if you have staff. See our registration guide.
2. Separate business banking — a business account, not your personal one, so your business activity is clear and credible.
3. Clean records — sales, expenses, and bank statements that tell a consistent story. Messy or missing records are the most common reason small applications stall.
4. Evidence of demand — invoices, orders, or sales history showing people already pay you, or a realistic case that they will.
5. A simple business plan — what the money's for, what it will produce, and how repayments will be made. Our guide on writing one keeps it manageable.
6. A credible footprint — a findable, professional business (even a basic website and Google profile) signals you're a real operation, not a one-off.

How much should you actually borrow?

Borrow for a specific, productive purpose — stock you can turn over, equipment that earns, a step that clearly increases sales — not a vague "to grow." Work out the smallest amount that achieves that purpose, then check the repayment against your real monthly cash flow, including slow months. If a normal slow month would make repayments painful, the loan is too big or the timing is wrong.

Using a loan without destroying your business

• Use it for things that generate income, not for covering ongoing losses — debt can't fix a business that loses money on every sale.
• Keep a buffer for repayments so one slow month doesn't put you behind.
• Don't mix the loan into personal spending; keep it in the business where you can track what it produced.
• Watch the total cost, not just the monthly figure — interest and fees over the full term are the real price.
• Have a backup plan for repayment if sales come in slower than hoped.

A quick self-test before you apply

Ask yourself: Is my business registered and banking separately? Can I show clean records for the last several months? Can I prove people already buy from me? Do I know exactly what the money is for and how it repays itself? Could I handle the repayments in a slow month? If you can answer yes to all five, you're genuinely loan-ready. If not, the most valuable thing you can do is fix the weak answer first — it improves both your odds of approval and your odds of surviving the loan.