Underwriting infrastructure for small-business private credit

From submission to credit decision in minutes.

Sterlo turns bank statements, books and tax returns into verified data, finds every existing obligation, scores the credit against your policy and drafts terms — for revenue-based financing, merchant cash advance and short-term small-business loans. Your underwriters spend their time deciding, not keying data.

For direct lenders, credit funds, MCA & RBF funders and brokers · Unlimited users · Your data is never shared
Term loan · scored from bank data, books and tax return
Hudson Dental Group
Direct application · bank linked · 2 years of returns
A
$212kTrue monthly revenue
0Existing obligations
2.4×Cash-flow DSCR
Revenue stability
91
Cash-flow cover
88
Balance strength
84
Concentration
79
Existing business debtNone found
Bank vs books vs tax returnMatched within 3%
You would be1st position
Term loan ready for credit review$150,000 · 24 mo · 16% APR
✓Reads PDF, scanned & CSV statements ✓Finds existing debt & stacking ✓Your credit box, your pricing ✓Human sign-off on every decision
Who it's for

One credit engine, every small-business lender.

Direct lenders & credit funds

Score small-business credit from bank data, books and tax returns — existing obligations, debt-service coverage and a 3-way revenue check. Re-score the book on a new policy and hand investors a clean loan tape.

MCA & revenue-based funders

Position and stacking detection, factor-rate offer grids, state disclosures, e-sign, ACH remittance tracking and syndication.

Brokers & marketplaces

Pre-qualify before you submit, give partners a live deal tracker, and route files with structured, verified data.

Capital providers

Participations, investor statements and vintage performance by grade, ISO and industry — the reporting a fund manager expects.

How it works

Every submission, underwritten.

Connect once. Every broker, marketplace or direct applicant after that arrives already analyzed, in a pipeline your credit team works from.

Connect your inbox

Forward your submissions mailbox to your private Sterlo address — Gmail, Google Workspace or Outlook — or share your own application link with ISOs.

Statements are parsed

Bank statements are read automatically, transactions tagged, and true revenue separated from transfers, loans and refunds.

The deal is scored

Existing positions are found, your knockouts and credit policy are applied, and the deal gets a transparent grade with the reasons behind it.

You decide

An offer is drafted from your pricing grid. Your underwriter reviews, adjusts and approves — nothing goes out on its own.

What's inside

Everything an underwriting desk needs.

Statement parsing

PDFs and CSVs from any bank — scans too, read by AI and cross-checked against the statement's own totals. Duplicate uploads never double-count.

True revenue

Monthly revenue by source with transfers, funding deposits and refunds stripped out, plus deposit cadence and trend.

Existing debt & stacking

Loan, advance and lease payments are found in the bank data, sized and forecast to payoff — so you see total debt service and where you'd sit.

Transparent scorecard

Stability, durability, momentum, concentration, cash-flow cover and balances roll up into an A–F grade you can explain.

Your credit policy

Set your own knockouts, restricted industries and states, and upload your full rulebook. Deals route to Fund, Restricted or Decline.

Offer drafting

Advance, factor and term from your own grade-based pricing grid, capped by total debt service. Always a draft until you approve.

Fraud & risk checks

Statement consistency checks, business verification and an independent AI risk read that sits alongside — never replaces — the score.

Monitoring & renewals

Score history, grade migrations and new-position alerts on funded deals, plus a renewal-eligibility list.

Built for teams

Unlimited users with admin, underwriter and viewer roles, Google sign-in, a shared deal queue with assign and snooze, and Slack alerts.

Underwriting co-pilot

Ask “why did this score drop?” or “which funded deals are falling behind?” and get answers from your own book. Anything it suggests changing waits for your approval.

Merchant outreach

Missing-document chases, RFIs, renewal and payment check-ins drafted by email or SMS, with a private upload link. Replies land on the deal.

Book-level tools

Re-score every live deal on a new policy, export an investor-ready loan tape, and track vintage performance by grade, ISO and industry.

Submission to payoff

One platform for the whole deal.

Not just a score. Intake, closing, servicing and your broker and investor relationships run in the same place, on the same data.

1 · Intake

Deals come to you ready

  • Inbox forwarding — broker emails become scored deals
  • ISO portal — brokers submit, see a pre-score and track every stage live
  • Application chat — merchants apply by chat and connect their bank with Plaid
  • Auto-sorted documents — application, statements, ID and voided check each filed in place
  • Duplicate & ISO-conflict checks — first-in is timestamped
  • Merchant outreach — drafted email & SMS document chases and a private upload link; sent only when you approve
2 · Underwrite

Decide with evidence

  • Positions & stacking found in the bank data
  • Statement tamper checks — edits, overlays, font and balance mismatches
  • UCC & lien search — Middesk, Cobalt or Wolters Kluwer
  • Debt-service metrics — financing share of deposits, payment burden and coverage, refinancing dependency, cash runway
  • 3-way revenue check — bank deposits vs QuickBooks / Xero books vs the tax return
  • Offer simulator and consolidation / buyout offers
  • Underwriter queue — assign, snooze and archive; RFI questions drafted for the merchant
3 · Close

Paper it in one click

  • State disclosures — CA, NY, UT, VA, FL, GA and more, on your own counsel-approved forms
  • Contracts & e-signature with a signature certificate
  • Stips checklist and funding sign-off
  • Live progress for the ISO — contracts out, signed, verified, funded
4 · Service

Know where every dollar is

  • ACH remittance import — NACHA returns and processor exports, with payment health
  • Syndication — participations, fees and an investor portal; ISOs can syndicate too
  • ISO commissions & clawbacks with a set clawback period
  • Re-score the book on a new policy — see every grade move and the suggested action
  • Loan tape export for lenders, buyers and investors — anonymized if you like
  • Collections handoff and vintage performance analytics

Connects to your stack: REST API · MCP for Claude · HubSpot · Salesforce · Centrex · Plaid · QuickBooks & Xero exports · Twilio SMS · Slack alerts · webhooks

Security & data

Your book stays yours.

Sterlo is built from the ground up for many lenders on one platform — so isolation isn't an afterthought.

  • Company-level isolation. Every deal, statement, setting and user belongs to one company, enforced in the database layer on every query.
  • Encrypted credentials. Inbox passwords are encrypted at rest; forwarding needs no password at all.
  • Your policy is private. Your credit rules and trained models are never shown to, or used for, another funder.
  • Human in the loop. Offers are drafts. Nothing is ever emailed to a broker or merchant automatically.
dealExample Bakery LLC
statements4 · Jun–Sep
true_revenue_avg$84,210 / mo
positions2 active · daily + weekly
nsf_per_month1.4
negative_days3%
knockoutsall passed
policyFund
gradeB (72.4)
offer.draft$42,000 · 1.38 · 6 mo
Pricing

Pay for the deals you underwrite.

Every plan includes unlimited users and every feature. A deal counts once — the first time its statements are analyzed. Re-runs and extra statements are free.

Starter

$249/month
50 deals included · $5.00 per extra deal
  • Unlimited users
  • Inbox & application-link intake
  • Scorecard, positions & offers
  • Your own credit policy
  • Email support
Start with Starter

Growth

$599/month
200 deals included · $3.50 per extra deal
  • Unlimited users
  • Inbox & application-link intake
  • Scorecard, positions & offers
  • Your own credit policy
  • Monitoring & renewals
Start with Growth

Scale

$1,299/month
600 deals included · $2.50 per extra deal
  • Unlimited users
  • Inbox & application-link intake
  • Scorecard, positions & offers
  • Your own credit policy
  • Monitoring & renewals
Start with Scale

Need more than 600 deals a month or a custom integration? Talk to us.

FAQ

Questions lenders ask us

Which email providers work?

Any provider that can forward mail: Gmail, Google Workspace, Outlook and Microsoft 365 included. You get a private forwarding address in Settings, and Gmail's confirmation code shows up right there. You can also connect a mailbox directly with an app password.

What statement formats can it read?

PDF statements and CSV exports from any bank. Digital PDFs are read directly; scanned PDFs are read by AI, and the extracted rows are added up against the statement's own summary. Pages it isn't sure about are skipped rather than guessed, and any unverified result is clearly labelled.

Can I use my own underwriting rules?

Yes. Set knockouts, scorecard weights, grade cutoffs, restricted industries and states, and your offer pricing grid in Settings, or upload your complete credit policy. Every company's rules are private to that company.

Does it ever contact brokers or merchants on its own?

No. Sterlo drafts; your team decides. Offers are never sent automatically.

Can my ISOs and investors log in?

Yes, without accounts. Each ISO gets a private portal link to submit deals, track every stage live and see their commissions; each syndicator gets an investor statement link. They only ever see their own deals.

Does it message merchants for us?

It drafts the messages — missing documents, RFIs, renewals, payment check-ins — by email or SMS, with a private upload link. A person on your team always presses Send, and replies show up on the deal.

Does it handle closing and servicing, or just scoring?

Both. State disclosures, contracts with e-signature, ACH payment tracking, syndication, ISO commissions and collections handoff are built in, so a deal goes from submission to payoff in one place.

Who can see our deals?

Only users you invite to your company. Data is separated per company at the database level, and you control each teammate's role.

How is billing counted?

Each plan includes a monthly number of deals. A deal counts once, when its statements are first analyzed; deals over your allowance are billed at your plan's per-deal rate on the next invoice. You can change plans or cancel any time from Billing.

Put your submissions inbox to work.

Create your company account, connect your inbox, and your next broker submission arrives already underwritten.

Get started →