Most glossaries in this industry are published by lenders and written for borrowers. They define "lease" and "residual" and stop. They do not define the words you actually say on the phone all day — the ones that decide where a deal goes and whether it comes back.
This is the broker's version. One definition per term, plain English, no marketing. Where lenders genuinely disagree on what a word means, that is said rather than smoothed over, because the disagreement is usually the thing that costs you the deal.
A submission with nothing but the credit application and basic identification — no tax returns, no financial statements, sometimes no bank statements. Every lender that offers it sets a dollar ceiling above which the deal needs a full package, and that ceiling moves with credit quality, equipment class and time in business. It is a per-lender, per-program number, not an industry standard.
Everything app-only is not: bank statements, tax returns, a debt schedule, sometimes interim financials. What counts as "full" varies by desk, which is why the stip list is worth reading rather than assuming.
Short for stipulations. The conditions attached to an approval that must be satisfied before funding. Clearing stips is most of what happens between approval and money.
A file that does not pass on the numbers alone and needs explanation — a bankruptcy with context, a dip in revenue with a reason, a credit event that has a story behind it. Some desks read stories. Most do not, and knowing which is which is the skill.
Evidence the borrower has successfully carried a similar obligation before, usually similar in size and type to the one being requested. It is the single most common compensating factor in this market, and its absence is a common decline reason on otherwise clean files.
The owner personally guaranteeing the business obligation. Almost universal in small-ticket equipment finance. When a lender says "no PG" they usually mean a corporate-only structure available to much larger, much stronger borrowers.
The party that takes a borrower's request and places it with a funding source, earning a commission on completion. Does not hold the paper.
Independent sales organisation. Broadly the same function, more common as a term in merchant cash advance and small-business lending than in equipment finance, though the two worlds overlap heavily and many shops do both.
The party whose money it is. In equipment finance this may be a bank, an independent finance company, or a captive arm of a manufacturer.
A manufacturer's own finance arm, which exists to move that manufacturer's equipment. Not a broker's competitor exactly, but not a panel member either — they fund their own product.
The party selling the equipment. A significant share of broker deal flow comes from dealer relationships rather than direct-to-borrower marketing.
The set of hard rules a lender uses to decide whether a deal is even a candidate, before a human reads anything. Score floor, time in business, deal size, equipment type, geography and structure. A box is a filter, not a scorecard: failing a hard rule is out no matter how strong the rest of the file looks.
A rule inside the box that cannot be argued with. Excluded equipment, an excluded industry, a state the lender does not operate in. Distinct from a preference, which can sometimes be worked.
The minimum credit score a lender will consider, always tied to a specific bureau. "680 minimum" is meaningless without knowing which report it is measured on.
Experian, Equifax and TransUnion each hold different data and compute different scores for the same person. Which one your lender pulls determines the number they see, and it is frequently not the one you checked.
A commercial credit data service, now part of Equifax, built from payment history that equipment lenders contribute about their own borrowers. Its MasterScore runs on a different scale from consumer scores. A thin or absent PayNet file on a business that has carried equipment paper is itself a signal.
Not enough credit history to assess — the score may be fine, or absent, but there is insufficient depth behind it. Different from bad credit and treated differently by most desks.
How long the business has been operating. Sounds simple and is not: lenders measure it from different dates — incorporation, first tax return, first revenue, the date on the state registration — so three lenders can compute three different numbers from the same file.
A program some lenders run below their standard time-in-business minimum, usually with a lower dollar cap and extra conditions such as homeownership or a larger down payment. Read the conditions as part of the rule, not as a nice-to-have.
Rough shorthand for credit quality tiers, best to worst. There is no industry standard behind the letters — each desk draws its own lines — so the grade is only meaningful in the context of a specific lender's tiers.
The buy rate is what the funding source charges you; the sell rate is what the borrower is quoted. The spread is where broker compensation lives on rate-based deals.
Commission expressed as a percentage of the financed amount, often rolled into the deal as a separate line rather than paid separately. Lenders differ on how many points they permit and whether they pay the broker directly.
Payments collected at signing, applied to the front of the schedule. Two advance payments means the first two months are paid at closing, which lowers the remaining monthly payment and reduces the lender's exposure early.
Money the borrower puts in at closing that is not a payment. Many credit boxes carry a minimum percentage, sometimes only for deals inside a startup tier or above a size band.
An administrative fee charged at documentation. Amounts vary and some are negotiable; disclosure practice varies more than it should.
On a true lease, the value assigned to the equipment at end of term — what the borrower would pay to own it. A $1 buyout is not a residual in any meaningful sense; it is a financing structure wearing a lease's clothes.
A broker or lessor selling a completed lease to a funding source at a discount, receiving cash now instead of the payment stream. Common among independents who originate more than they can hold.
Funding released before every document has been received and verified, on the expectation that the remainder follows. Faster and riskier, and not every desk will do it.
The borrower buying equipment from an individual rather than a dealer. Materially harder to place: title, lien and valuation risk all rise, and a fair number of credit boxes exclude it outright.
The money has moved. Not the same as approved, not the same as documents out.
The broker's compensation, usually a percentage of the financed amount, paid by the funding source after funding. Timing varies by desk and is worth confirming before you rely on it.
How a commission divides between people or teams on a shared deal. Internal to your shop, and worth writing down before the deal funds rather than after.
A lender reclaiming commission if the deal goes bad early — typically a first-payment default. Terms vary and are usually in the broker agreement rather than the rate sheet.
Exactly what it sounds like, and the event most likely to trigger a clawback and to affect how a desk views your future submissions.
Four of these come up in nearly every declined file, and all four are knowable before you submit: which bureau the lender pulls and where their floor sits, how that lender measures time in business, whether the equipment or industry is on an exclusion list, and whether the structure — private party, older equipment, a refinance — is one the program allows.
None of that is secret. It is written down, scattered across rate sheets, program sheets and credit policies, and a fair amount of it lives only in a rep's head until somebody asks the right question. The work is collecting it once and checking against it every time, rather than finding out on the decline.
Dealbrace keeps the written rules for every desk you send to and checks a deal against them before it names anyone. Out is out.
Open the live demo