What to have ready before you start
Five things on the desk before you open the form, and the whole application is one sitting rather than two evenings.
3 min read
Nothing in an application is difficult. The typing is about three minutes. What turns that into two evenings is stopping halfway through to go and find something — the incorporation certificate, last month's statement, the exact spelling of a co-owner's name.
Everything is saved as you type, so stopping costs you nothing. But it is worth five minutes of gathering first.
The five things
- Six months of bank statements for the business's main operating account, as PDFs downloaded from your bank. Not screenshots, not a spreadsheet you export yourself — the file the bank generates. This is the one thing an underwriter cannot work without, and the one thing a repeat application always asks for again.
- Your incorporation paperwork. In Canada: the articles of incorporation, federal or provincial, plus your CRA business number confirmation or a master business licence. In the United States: the articles of incorporation or certificate of formation your state issued, plus the IRS letter confirming your EIN.
- Photo ID — a driver's licence, a passport or a provincial or state ID card. You hold it up to your phone or laptop camera once, and never again on any future application.
- The names of anyone who owns 25% or more of the business, with an email and a rough ownership percentage for each. Every lender asks; asking you now is faster than chasing you for it next week.
- A number in your head. How much you want, and one line on what it is for. Neither is binding and both can change later.
What you do not need to find
Your accountant. You can invite them instead. If the person who holds the banking login is not you, put their email into the Team screen and they can fill in that part without you sitting next to them. See inviting someone to help.
A free afternoon. The form is eleven short steps and it saves after every pause. The checklist on your applications page adds its steps up to about nine minutes of your time, most of which is the statements. Doing three steps in a queue on your phone and the rest at your desk tomorrow is a completely normal way to use it.
A good credit score. Applying never triggers a hard credit check, and nothing you do here touches your score.
On the web
Start at Sign up in the top right of sparkfinance.ca, or go straight to the sign-in page if you already have an account. Making the account comes first, so that everything you type after that is saved against a real record rather than living in a browser tab.
In the app
Open Spark and tap Apply for funding. It is the same account and the same application — if you make the account on your phone you can carry on at your desk this afternoon, and the other way round.
