Retailers offering financing to their growers all run into the same question: how do you increase approval rates without taking on unnecessary credit risk?
It’s a fair question. Financing gives growers what they need to buy products, run tighter operations, and plan for the next season. For retailers, a strong financing program closes more sales, deepens grower relationships, and improves the overall customer experience.
But one part of the process gets overlooked more than it should: the quality of the application itself.
The application is only as good as the information in it
Growers don’t always realize how much accurate financial information matters to the approval process. Equity, liabilities, assets, and other details are easy to estimate or misunderstand when filling out an application. Inaccurate or incomplete information makes it harder for a financing provider to see a grower’s real financial position.
At Growers Edge, we’ve found that one of the biggest ways to improve approval rates is helping growers submit complete, accurate financial information from the start.
A grower can be an excellent operator with real financial strength and still have that strength go unrecognized, simply because it didn’t come through clearly on the application. This shows up most often in a few areas:
- Equity and net worth
- Existing liabilities and debt
- Assets
- Income
- Business ownership
- Outstanding obligations
Take equity. We’ve seen growers get declined at 45% owner equity because they left land out of the calculation. Add the land back in, and the number moves to 70%, well within range for approval. Same operation, same financial position. The only thing that changed was what made it onto the application.
That kind of gap shows up for different reasons. A grower might not know what belongs in a specific field, or they’re estimating because their financial information isn’t in front of them. Other times the numbers are accurate but incomplete. Either way, the result is the same. The lender doesn’t get a clear picture of the grower’s financial position, and a qualified grower ends up looking less qualified than they are.
What growers should check before submitting
These are the habits that change how an application reads:
- Pull current financial statements before starting the application instead of estimating from memory
- List every liability, including smaller ones that feel easy to leave off
- Use actual asset values, not rough or outdated estimates
- Report income the way the lender asks for it, not the way it’s easiest to summarize
- Double check business ownership details if the operation involves multiple entities or partners
None of these require new financial strength. They just require the paperwork to reflect the strength that’s already there.
What retailers can do to help
Retailers are in the best position to catch these gaps before an application goes anywhere. A few ways to build that in:
- Walk growers through what belongs in each field before they start, not after they submit
- Review an application for completeness before it moves to underwriting
- Keep a short reference sheet on hand for growers who aren’t sure how to calculate equity or list liabilities
- Flag rough or rounded numbers and ask growers to confirm them against actual statements
The opportunity starts before underwriting
If retailers want to improve approval rates, the work begins before the application ever reaches underwriting. A strong operation and an accurate application aren’t the same thing. Growers need both, and the second one is the easier fix. Getting a grower’s financial information right the first time closes that gap.
Explore the Input Financing program to see how a complete application changes what’s possible.