SMART → ADVANCE

The Smart System · The Advance Network

Get smart about money.
Advance with the right people.

Know where you stand - Know where to go next

We turn complex commercial-finance information into practical intelligence — combining market knowledge, transparent analysis and decades of commercial-finance experience to help you see where you stand and what matters next.

See where you standYour Capacity, Access and Structure — read separately, not averaged into one score.
See what mattersThe few issues most likely to decide your finance, rather than a list of everything that could.
Find the right expertiseWhen you need someone, an introduction to a specialist who fits the problem.
Run the Smart System — 15 minutes → See how the Network works

Free. You are never invoiced. Private. Nothing is sent until you say so.

Your reading example — not real data

Nearly thereTwo things to fix before you apply

CCapacity Workable
AAccess Strong
SStructure Needs work

Then, if you want to move: an introduction to the right broker archetype A structure problem needs a different specialist from a capacity problem. Smart Advance uses the reading to make the introduction more relevant — not to promise an approval.

In plain terms

What actually happens

  1. 1You run the three tools. About fifteen minutes all up. No credit check, no cost, and nothing is sent anywhere — not to us, not to a lender.
  2. 2You get a written summary. Where you stand, what finance would cost you in dollars, and whether an offer you have been given is competitive. Yours to keep whatever you do next.
  3. 3Only if you ask, it goes to the Network. Matched to a broker who works your kind of deal — construction, equipment, cash flow, property-secured, or getting back up after a decline.
  4. 4They read it before they ring you. You are never invoiced at any stage. If finance settles, the broker pays us out of their own commission.

We are not a lender and we do not write the loan. We are the step before the loan — the part almost everyone skips.

How Smart Advance works

SMART SYSTEM

Know where you stand.

Use CAS, the Lending Ladder and our tools to organise the facts, understand the market context and see what matters most.

ADVANCE NETWORK

Then talk to the right specialist.

If you want to explore finance, Smart Advance can introduce you to the broker archetype best aligned with the problem. That broker then investigates actual lender options.

Our role is clear: we educate and organise first, then make broker introductions when requested. We do not sell a lender a place in your result. If finance later settles through a broker we introduced, Smart Advance may receive a referral payment from that broker.

The CAS method

Every lender reads your file the same three ways. Most people only prepare for one.

Strong accounts carry you a long way. Then the answer turns on something nobody mentioned — whether that lender writes your kind of business at all, or whether the facility is the right shape for the job. Capacity, Access, Structure. Three separate readings, one decision, and the fix is different every time.

C

Capacity

Can the business carry it — in a bad month, not just a good one?

Trading cash flow against what you already owe. Seasonality. How much room is left before the next repayment is the one that hurts.

What moves it
Clearing a facility firstA longer termWaiting a quarter

A

Access

Will a lender look at this file at all — and which kind?

Time trading, credit conduct, where you sit with the ATO, whether the paperwork exists. This is the one that quietly decides the price you are ever offered.

What moves it
Lodgements up to dateA payment plan in placeThree months of statements

S

Structure

Is this the right money, shaped the right way, for this job?

Right product, right term, right security — and an exit that survives a settlement running late. The one nobody prepares for, and the cheapest one to fix.

What moves it
A different productMatching term to the jobA dated, documented exit
Why three needles and not one score: a single number tells you that you failed. Three tell you where — and usually only one of the three is the problem. That is the difference between “come back in a year” and a list you can work through this month.
Get your CAS reading →

Two halves of the name, two things you get

A system to understand the money. A network to reach the right specialist.

ON YOUR OWN · FREE

THE SMART SYSTEM

Three tools. Get smart about money.

Three tools you run yourself, before anyone assesses anything. You come out holding a written position — where you stand, what it costs, whether an offer stacks up.

  • Free, and free of any obligation
  • No credit check to find out where you stand
  • Nothing reaches a lender, or us, unless you ask
  • Yours to keep and use however helps

If it ends here, that is a complete outcome. Plenty of people should not borrow yet, and this is how you find that out cheaply.

ONLY IF YOU ASK · FREE

THE ADVANCE NETWORK

Specialist brokers. Advance with the right people.

Your brief goes to a broker who works your particular lane — not a call centre, not whoever is next in the queue. The right people, not just any people.

  • Matched to the deal type, not to a roster
  • They read the brief before they ring you
  • You are never invoiced, at any stage
  • “Not yet, and here is why” is a real answer

We are not the lender and we are not the broker writing your deal. Our role is to make the market easier to understand, prepare a more useful brief and, when you ask, introduce you to the broker archetype that fits it.

The line to hold: the Smart System makes you a well-prepared borrower — it never makes you an approved one. Nothing in it predicts a lender’s decision.

Built from experience. Grounded in information.

Information, intelligently organised.

Smart Advance is an educational commercial-finance information and broker-introduction platform. The information is drawn from public sources such as regulators, government guidance, product documentation and published market material, then organised through frameworks shaped by decades around commercial finance.

The experience tells us which questions are worth asking. It does not turn an educational tool into a lender decision, personalised recommendation or promise of finance.

FACT / CALCULATION
Objective information or arithmetic based on what you entered.
MARKET CONTEXT
Publicly available information about how a product or part of the commercial lending market commonly works.
SMART ADVANCE LENS
Our educational interpretation using CAS and the Lending Ladder. It is a framework for better questions, not a credit decision.

The Smart System

Three core questions. One companion tool for short-term and exit-led finance.

TOOL 01

Where do I stand?

Know it in advance — before a lender forms a view for you.

Fourteen questions on trading history, turnover, credit, ATO position, documents and security. A written read on how each one is weighed, and which lending lanes it opens.

You walk away with: your position in writing, and the kind of broker it points to.

Readiness Check →
TOOL 02

What does it really cost?

Know it in advance — before the paperwork tells you.

Rates, factor rates, fees taken out or added on, weekly against monthly, balloons. Turned into dollars and a true annual cost measured against the money you actually receive.

You walk away with: the total dollar cost and a rate you can compare.

Cost Check →
TOOL 03

Is this offer any good?

Know it in advance — before you sign it.

Put a real offer in and see what it costs a year all-in, where it sits against published ranges, and what to ask before you commit. No lender is named and nothing is sent anywhere.

You walk away with: where that offer sits, and what to ask before signing.

Offer Check →

Worth knowing before you apply anywhere

There is no single “business loan” market. There are rungs.

Most people who get declined were standing at the wrong rung. What changes going down is not just the rate — it is what the lender looks at, and how fast.

The lending ladder

Same business, four different assessments. Indicative ranges only — not a quote.

The lending ladder Four tiers of lender from bank to private, showing how indicative cost and speed rise as the assessment shifts from financials to security. LENDER TIER WHAT THEY LOOK AT HARDEST INDICATIVE COST SPEED BankTWO YEARS OF FINANCIALS Tax returns, serviceability, conduct, clean ATO position, real security 6–10% p.a. 3–6 wks Non-bankBANK STATEMENTS Turnover, cash-flow rhythm, director credit, and how much debt is already stacked 12–30% p.a. 2–5 days SpecialistTHE ASSET OR THE INVOICE What is being bought, or who owes you — your own credit matters less here 15–40% p.a. 1–3 days PrivateTHE PROPERTY AND THE EXIT Not you, not your financials — the valuation, and how the loan gets repaid 9–30% p.a. 24–72 hrs
The point: a decline at the top rung says almost nothing about the rung below, because they are not assessing the same thing. Tool 01 tells you which rung your file sits on before you spend an enquiry finding out.

Where the System ends and the Network begins

The boundary is the whole promise: nothing crosses it unless you move it.

Scroll the diagram sideways to see the whole boundary →

From the three tools to a settled facility The Smart System covers the three tools and the written brief, with no credit check and nothing sent. The Advance Network covers the matched broker and settlement, and begins only when you choose. THE SMART SYSTEM THE ADVANCE NETWORK YOU DECIDE HERE 1 Three tools ~15 minutes 2 Your brief Yours to keep, either way 3 Matched broker Expert in your lane Settlement Or an honest “not yet” NO CREDIT CHECK · NOTHING SENT · NOTHING STORED ONLY IF YOU ASK · YOU ARE NEVER INVOICED On settlement the broker pays us from their own commission — which is why “not yet” is an answer we can afford to give.

The Advance Network

The reading picks the person.

A structure problem needs a different broker from a capacity problem. Not more lenders — the one person whose week is already spent on files that read like yours. What the five kinds of broker actually do →

Pick the one that sounds like your week

Construction & tradesProgress claims, retentions, pre-sales, GRV against TDC Cash flowSeasonal cycles, stacked facilities, slow debtors Equipment & vehiclesChattel mortgage against lease, balloons, GST timing Property-securedGross against net LVR, second mortgages, the exit After a declineFinding the actual cause before another enquiry lands

Five archetypes, one match

Your CAS reading says which of these you need.

An example: capacity and access are fine, the money is the wrong shape for the job. That is a fixable problem — with the right person.

A Problem Solver This file needs a route, not a lender list. Matched to a low Structure reading
A Bank Insider Knows how a credit paper reads on the other side of the desk, and who to put it in front of.
A Non-Bank Navigator The value here is knowing whose appetite changed this month, not a long relationship.
A Sector Specialist The structure of your industry is not something they have to be taught.
An Asset Specialist On an asset purchase the structure decision is usually worth more than a point of rate.
None of them If we do not have the right person for your file, we tell you that instead of sending you the nearest one.

You are never invoiced. If finance settles, the broker pays us from their own commission — and no lender can pay to be recommended.

The Smart System · The Advance Network

Get smart about money.
Advance with the right people.

Everybody gets offered an advance. Few make it a smart one.

Run the Smart System → Talk to someone first