Question 1

What is reconciliation and how does it lower my payments?

Accepted Answer

It is a clause requiring the funder to adjust your remittances to reflect actual collections. If your revenue has fallen and your agreement contains one, an adjustment is something you may be contractually entitled to rather than something you have to persuade anyone to grant. Ask in writing, send the revenue documentation the clause requires, and send it where the agreement says to send it.

Question 2

Should I take another advance to cover the ones I have?

Accepted Answer

Understand what it does to your total position before you decide. A new advance is new principal, new fees, a new guaranty, and usually another UCC filing, on top of everything already outstanding. Compute the combined weekly remittance and the annualized cost across all positions before and after. That number, not the relief of a single funding day, is what tells you whether the deal helps.

Question 3

What about a consolidation or reverse consolidation?

Accepted Answer

Same analysis. These are marketed as relief and are structurally another financing: a new obligation, new charges, and a new personal guaranty, frequently secured against the same receivables the existing positions already claim. Some are appropriate. Many replace a manageable problem with a larger one. The question is always the combined position afterward, not the payment on the new paper alone.

Question 4

Should I hire a debt settlement company?

Accepted Answer

Know the differences before you decide. A settlement company is not a law firm, cannot appear for you if you are sued, cannot advise you on whether your agreements are enforceable, and communications with it generally carry no privilege. Most of these programs also work by having you stop paying and accumulate funds while they negotiate. That is a strategy with real consequences: it can end your reconciliation rights, trigger cross-defaults across your other positions, and invite enforcement while you wait. Ask directly what happens to your other advances during the program, and what happens if a funder sues while you are in it. What that looks like once the remittances have actually stopped is covered at I already stopped paying.

Question 5

What does it cost to just get advice?

Accepted Answer

Nothing, to start. The first conversation with us is free, and it is usually enough to tell you whether your reconciliation window is open, whether the agreements have defects worth raising, what your actual exposure is under the guaranties, and whether the offer on your desk improves your position. If you want a document read closely rather than a conversation, hourly consulting starts at $500 per hour with no retainer and no engagement beyond the hour. Either way you find out what you are dealing with before you commit to anything.

Question 6

How do I know if it is already too late for reconciliation?

Accepted Answer

Check whether the clause conditions the right on not being in default, and check whether you are in default under that specific agreement. Many do, and the definition of default is often broader than missing a payment. Stacked merchants are frequently current on some positions and behind on others. Check each agreement separately rather than assuming the answer is the same across all of them.

Question 7

What if I ask and the funder refuses or ignores me?

Accepted Answer

You are better off than before you asked. A documented request that was properly made and refused is evidence that the reconciliation right did not function in practice, which is directly relevant to whether the transaction was a purchase of receivables or a loan. Keep the request, the documentation you sent, the address you sent it to, and any response or lack of one.

Question 8

My broker told me not to miss payments and offered me another deal instead. Is that advice?

Accepted Answer

It is a sales conversation, and it may also be sound. Brokers are compensated on funding, not on the position you are left with afterward, and none of that means the advice is wrong. What it means is that you should not make this decision on that input alone. The person telling you what to do about your debt should not be paid based on which option you pick.

Question 9

What is the one thing I should do this week?

Accepted Answer

Read your agreements for the word reconciliation. If it appears, find the trigger, the documentation requirement, and the address, and make the request properly and in writing. It costs nothing, it does not commit you to anything, and it either lowers your payments or creates a record you will want later.

My merchant cash advance payments are too high. What are my options?