The offer inside your shop or dispatch software

The capital offer inside your dispatch or shop-management software is one product wearing five logos. An offer is extended on the payments history running through the platform; the price is one flat fee; repayment is a percentage of the sales that run through the platform, with a minimum every so many days and a term; and behind the button sits either a loan from a bank or a merchant cash advance from a funder, serviced by the same rail. The vendors explain their own well. What none of them explains is how to read it, what it cannot see about your business, and what a funding partner sees about it afterwards. That is this page.

What each software platform offers

What each platform's own pages say, as of the date shown. Nothing here is a rate, an amount or a speed; those are the vendors' to quote.

The rail underneath most of these is Stripe Capital, and Stripe's own documentation is the plainest description of the shape: "one flat fee that never changes", paid over the length of the financing; repayment "by deducting a percentage of your Stripe sales, known as the repayment rate"; and, depending on the type, "periodic minimum payment requirements and a finite term", with any shortfall against the minimum debited at the end of the period (How Stripe Capital works, 2026-09-29). Parafin's is the same shape in its own words: a fixed percentage of sales on a periodic basis, one fixed fee over the term, a minimum (parafin.com, 2026-09-29). Two exceptions are lines of credit, not advances: ServiceTitan's Bluevine listing and Housecall Pro's Fundbox rail. Those are the shape on the line-of-credit page, and the rest of this page is about the other kind.

How to read the fee and the repayment rate

"One flat fee, no interest" is true and tells you nothing about the price. Convert it. Take an invented offer, not any platform's: $20,000, a $2,600 fee, repaid at 12% of the card sales that run through the platform. The total is $22,600, so the factor rate is 1.13. That is the whole price, and it does not change however fast you repay, which the vendors say plainly and which is exactly the property to think about. The repayment rate decides the term, and the term decides the price per year.

Illustration, not a quote and not any vendor's terms. The annualised figure is the 13% fee scaled to a year over the months it took; it is not an APR, because nothing here is a balance that falls as you pay it. Read the rows the way the advance guide reads its own table: a strong quarter finishes the offer faster and makes the same fee more expensive per year. A good month is the dearest way to repay a flat fee.

Does the payment drop when sales do?

It flexes down to the floor. The same invented offer with a minimum of $2,500 every 60 days: at $8,000 a month of platform card sales, 12% is $960 a month, $1,920 in the period, and at the period's end the platform debits the $580 shortfall from your bank account, which is what Jobber's and Stripe's pages describe in their own words. Illustration, not a quote. A share of sales with a minimum is the third shape on the shapes guide, a share with a floor, and the floor is the number to find before the fee. Ask what the minimum is, how often, and what the maximum term is, because a slow stretch does not extend the term past it; it turns the remainder into a debit.

What the offer can't see about your business

Two things, and both are about the slice.

The revenue that does not run through the platform. The offer is sized off the payments history the platform can see, and Housecall Pro's and Jobber's pages both say that more of your revenue running through the platform helps the offer. Checks, cash, invoices paid by bank transfer, the jobs you still run in the old system: invisible at underwriting. That cuts both ways. The offer may be smaller than the business would justify. And the remittance never touches that revenue either, so a shop that takes half its money by check remits only on the card half, which stretches the term and brings the floor closer. If your card share is small, the 12% in the table is 12% of a small number, and the minimum is doing the work.

The advance you already have from someone else. The dashboard reviews your processing history; it does not read your bank statements, and it does not know about the daily debit another funder is already taking. Accepting the in-app offer on top of an existing advance is stacking whether or not the app can see it. Many contracts forbid it, and two remittances out of one business, one from the payouts and one from the account, is the route into the month where neither clears. If you are remitting on anything, that is the first fact the offer cannot see, and the one to weigh before the fee.

How it looks to the next funding partner

An in-app remittance does not show on your bank statement as a debit. It comes out before the payout lands. So the statement shows smaller payouts from the platform, and nothing else: no line, no funder's name, no balance, no term. In my read of how a statement is read, a partner looking at it later sees lower card revenue and cannot tell why, or that a balance is open, or how much of it is left.

That is not a reason to avoid the product. It is a reason to name it. On the half page that goes with your statements (the bank-statements guide says what else goes on it), write the platform, the total, the repayment rate, the balance today and the date it should clear. A partner that knows the payouts are net of a 12% remittance reads the same statement as a healthier business than one that assumes the payouts are gross. And if the answer to "what is remitting today" is the in-app offer, say so before you ask anyone for anything else, because the second thing they will find is the first thing you did not say.

Loan or advance? Check which one you're signing

Shopmonkey's page and Stripe's say both exist on the same rail: a loan issued by a bank, and a merchant cash advance provided by a funder. They can look identical in the dashboard. They are not the same contract. A merchant cash advance is a purchase of a fixed amount of your future receivables, priced by the fee, with a specified percentage and, usually, a reconciliation clause; a loan is credit, with a lender's name, a term and a payment schedule, and interest described as a fee. Which one you are being offered changes what the words in the agreement mean when a month goes wrong. Ask which it is, and read the document, not the banner. That is what the words commonly mean in these agreements; it is not legal advice, and whether a clause does what it says is a question for whoever reads your contract with you.

Five questions before you tap accept

The four from the advance guide, and one that only an in-app offer needs.

1. What is the total I repay with every fee included, and what lands? Then divide: the total over the amount is the factor rate.
2. What is the repayment rate, and what does it come to at my thinnest month's platform sales? Then find the minimum per period and the maximum term, and check the thin month against the minimum.
3. Is there a reconciliation right, and how exactly do I exercise it? On an advance, which clause, what window, what you send.
4. Which guarantee am I signing? A performance guarantee or a full personal one; they are different things to put your name to.
5. What happens to the remittance if I leave the platform or switch processors while a balance is open? The remittance runs through the platform's payouts. If the payouts stop, something else has to happen, and the agreement says what. Ask before you sign, not the month you move.

The short versions of this page are on the plumbing, HVAC, auto repair and mobile mechanic pages, each with its trade's vendors. If you want a second read from a partner that sees the whole business rather than the platform's slice, the form takes about two minutes, asks for bands rather than figures, and I do not run credit on it. Partners underwrite and decide. The offer in the dashboard is a real one; read it like any other quote, and read the part the dashboard cannot show you first.