Improve your company's chances of opening a credit line

To implement our incredible loveelectric employee benefit, the company first has to apply for credit from our leasing partners. Whether the company is suitable, and eligible for credit, depends on a couple of factors. 

Every application is approved or denied on a case-by-case basis. As such, there’s lots of ways businesses can improve their chances of approval, as well as some general good practice to increase the likelihood and speed up the process.

If you'd like to get a rough eligibility score for your company, use the quick and easy loveelectric eligibility checker here.

There’s no ‘magic formula’ for a company being approved for credit. However, below we outline all the ways a company can improve its eligibility.

Ready to elevate your company? Get in touch. 

^{Keep company accounts in order}

Applying for credit from the UK’s largest funders can sometimes involve a somewhat in-depth examination of a company’s books.

If your company Net Worth is below £500,000, then there is a reduced chance of a company being granted a credit line. If successful, it may also mean a smaller line of credit is opened for your business, at least initially. This, in turn, means that fewer cars will be available to employees.

However, one of our funders will accept a guarantee from a UK-based parent company - but it can not be based abroad. If a company with a Net Worth of <£500,000 can demonstrate strong year-on-year growth for multiple consecutive years, it has on occasion been granted full credit.

When examining company accounts, key figures to be in the green are:

• Cash at Bank
• Working Capital
• Net Worth

These numbers will give a strong indication of how likely the company is to have credit approved.

Make the Funders’ life easy

Even though applying for a line of credit is a B2B transaction, there’s still a human team at the other end processing the application. It doesn’t hurt to put forward the best application from the outset. 

Here are some simple hygiene factors that will speed the application process up and potentially grant some good faith with the application team.

1. Provide a landline number - Due to fraud prevention reasons, funders will not accept mobile phone numbers as the main point of telephone contact. A company must provide a landline number.
2. Accurate and pinpoint details - Do not abbreviate names, provide full names and details. Although it may sound trivial, fill out the application with the utmost accuracy. This is especially important in regard to names, as the funder will use the precise details provided to run credit checks. For example, do not abbreviate ‘Sammie’ to ‘Sam’ - the name must match exactly how it appears on official documentation.
3. Banking details are correct - We have recently introduced a checker within the application to avoid any accidental mistakes and number mistypes. 

Why do we need your company’s banking details? 

At the application stage, it’s simply to confirm that your business has a UK bank account via a PAYE check.

Once the benefit is live, the company pays the first month’s lease initially before providing the use of the car to the employee. This then becomes a Benefit-in-Kind, with the cost reimbursed to the company in the same month via the employee’s gross salary.

This request will appear as a direct debit, with nothing being billed until the vehicle is due to arrive. We’re regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN743264), so rest assured that this is completely normal practice for a salary sacrifice model.

Apply for the right amount of credit

The application process can be time consuming, which is why we encourage all of our business clients to initially request a credit line that covers roughly 10% of their eligible workforce.

Many companies implement the scheme on a ‘tester’ basis, requesting only a small amount of credit - just enough to cover only one or two cars, say. Inevitably, employees find out about the incredible savings that can be made, but the company doesn’t have enough credit to offer the benefit.

The company then has to apply for a credit line extension. For a lot of our client companies, this adds unnecessary workload that can be easily avoided by initially applying for more credit. 

This is why our application form autofills with a figure of 10%.

It isn’t a necessity to progress the application with this figure, a business can apply for as many - or as few - cars as they require. We can always request more credit for the business further down the line, but 10% is our recommended figure to aim for.

Ready to introduce the world's best employee benefit? Get in touch

Size and Length do matter

Although many leasing companies will pretend it doesn’t, they actually do really care about your company size and its length of trading.

As a general rule of thumb, companies with more than 20 employees who’ve been trading for over 2 years typically fare best during the application process. However, this isn’t a hard and fast rule. Young companies with two years of trading - but only a handful of employees - can still be approved if the company accounts show a healthy balance sheet.

In short; the bottom line for approval is the company’s bottom line.

Attention Company Directors

One of the main reasons that companies are refused credit is due to the condition of the Company Director’s credit report.  If you have a poor credit score, take a look at Experian’s Top 10 Tips to Improving your Credit Score.

Insurance underwriters create their quotes based on trends and data. On occasion, underwriters have found a correlation between a director’s poor credit score and the company defaulting on payments (if required).

This means that if the Company Director has a less than favourable credit report, their business will likely only receive credit from one of our funders.

Other important notes for Directors:

• Directors (or authorised signatories) must be UK based
• Must have three years of personal address history. 
• When the company applies to implement loveelectric’s employee benefit, funders will only run a soft credit check on the Company Director - it does not affect their credit score or credit history.

‍Let loveelectric be your advocate

By choosing loveelectric, companies don’t just get the greatest green employee benefit, they get a whole team of advocates. 

Thanks to well-established professional relationships with the country’s largest and most trusted leasing companies, we’re able to appeal decisions and fight on your behalf. We do absolutely everything we can to get your application approved.

That’s a loveelectric guarantee.

Company Eligibility Checklist

Our handy eligibility checklist outlines the 10 key criteria our funders rank applicants on. 

Download our checklist below and see if your company is ready to implement the world’s best green employee benefit: attract and retain the best staff, hit stringent Corporate Social Responsibility targets and boost brand image - all without paying a penny.