Ed. Note: The following content was provided by Camino Financial who is a client of KHTS AM-1220.

Camino Financial is a local lending company that offers many helpful services to small business owners, including a credit assessment.

“We’re very proud to be here in Santa Clarita and to serve all of the businesses here,” said Sean Salas, co-owner and operator of Camino Financial.

Small businesses are being rejected for loans from large banks, and there are “real reasons” behind those decisions, according to Salas.

“We try to bridge the gap by educating the small business owner,” said Salas.

Any small business owner can go into Camino Financial for a free ten minute credit assessment.

The credit assessment will help you see how your credit profile looks from the perspective of a lender,” said Salas.

The free credit assessment tool can auto populate a nine page credit assessment that concentrates on four different areas of the business, according to Salas.

Here are those areas, and some insight into why they are important.

Personal credit:

“While we believe that traditional lenders do overweigh the strength of your personal credit and the influence it has on your business, it is a consideration,” said Salas. “We talk to people and tell them they might need to have a personal credit score of 680 and above.”

Personal credit is an indication of the character of the business, and the ability to pay back that debt which is important, according to Salas.

Camino Financial looks at different areas that they believe have larger weighting in terms of how the credit should be assessed.

Cash flows:

“Too often people forget that you needs to have cash flows to be able to take on debt,” said Salas. “This is not an equity investment, this is debt investment.”

Capital structure:

Camino Financial will ask, “Do you already have debt on the business?” and if not, they will “try to educate the small business owner why a little bit of debt can go a long way in helping you grow the business.” said Salas. “But prudent amounts of debt don’t, you don’t want to over leverage your business.”

Business Attributes:

“Too often do we see small businesses with high customer concentration where the largest customer is bringing in 80-90 percent of the business,” said Salas. “There is inherent risk in customer concentration, because if that customer leaves one day that business is going to go cash flow negative.”

“We help small business help evaluate all of these different facets, and we can do that over the course of a ten minute application,” said Salas.

To learn more about the company visit their website here or call them at 661-481-2206

Camino Financial

25350 Magic Mountain

Suite #300

Valencia, CA 91355