The single most important piece of timing advice for business finance is this: apply before you are desperate. Lenders can sense urgency in an application, and an applicant who needs funds within 24 hours to avoid a crisis is a different risk profile from one planning ahead with a week or more to spare.
Apply when your accounts look their strongest
If your business is seasonal, consider when your revenue is at its peak — or just after, when your bank statements will reflect healthy inflows. Applying during a known slow quarter is not impossible, but being able to point to strong trading months in your recent statements makes the assessor's job easier. If you have just closed a strong year, that is a good moment to apply.
Give yourself time before the need is urgent
Even fast lenders need time to assess an application, verify information, and transfer funds. At Credicorp, decisions are typically made quickly — especially when Open Banking is connected — but "quickly" still means hours, not always seconds. If you need funds by a specific date, build in at least a few days of buffer. For a Credicorp Flex revolving facility, having the line in place before you need to draw on it means you can act the moment an opportunity or gap arises.
Avoid applying immediately after a difficult period
If your company has just come through a rough trading patch — late payments from customers, an unexpected cost, a quiet quarter — it can be worth waiting until two or three months of recovery are visible in your statements before applying. This is not about concealing difficulty; it is about giving the lender the clearest possible picture of where the company is now, not where it was.
We lend only to UK limited companies and LLPs, and the loan is to the company with no director personal guarantee. As business finance outside the consumer-credit regime, it is not covered by the Financial Ombudsman Service or FSCS.
See also: Preparing a funding request for your business, Common reasons applications are declined.