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.