Infographic: What Is a Short Term Loan?

What do you do if you hit the hurdle, drop the baton on the handoff during the relay race, or trip during a sprint? You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back into the race as fast as you can. The same is true for your small business.

The market is full of snares that can snag your company—cash crunches, changes in consumer spending, tax law revisions, and even the weather, depending on your field. In many cases, how you handle a crisis is more important than the crisis itself. In a surprising number of cases, how you react can mean the difference between watching a crunch disappear in the rearview mirror and having it shutter your business.

Easy access to funding can be a necessary tool when your business is facing stormy financial waters. Short term loans, which provide access to funding as soon as 24 hours in some cases, can keep you in the race.

The amounts offered for short term loans range between $2,500 and $500,000. Quickly receiving this type of money in your coffers will help you correct your cash outflows as fast as possible. Most short term loans offer repayment periods from 1 to 3 years—this means that you won’t drag down your business in the near-term with burdensome loan payments.

The interest rates for short term loans can be as low as 8%. However, always read through a loan’s term carefully—that is one area you don’t want to race through.