MCA Underwriter
Glossary

MCA Position

An active merchant cash advance a business is already repaying, visible on a bank statement as a recurring daily or weekly ACH debit to a funder.

An MCA position is a merchant cash advance a business is currently repaying. On a bank statement it appears as a recurring, fixed ACH debit — commonly the same dollar amount every business day (or once a week) — pulled by a funder or its servicer. Each open position is one more claim on the merchant’s daily cash.

Stacking is the act of adding a new advance on top of existing ones. Two positions at $500 and $400 a day mean $900 comes off the top before the merchant pays anyone else; a third can push combined daily debits past what the business actually earns. That’s why detecting existing positions is core to responsible underwriting.

How to spot a position

How we detect it: the engine groups recurring debits by amount and cadence, matches the descriptor against a maintained list of known MCA funders, and reports each detected position with funder, amount and cadence. Fixed monthly obligations that pull only once or twice per statement are surfaced separately as candidates for a human to confirm.

Existing positions also inflate gross deposits when the advance disbursal lands as a credit — which is why position detection and true revenue go hand in hand.

See also

Frequently asked questions

What is MCA stacking?

Stacking is taking a new merchant cash advance while one or more advances are still being repaid, so multiple funders debit the same account daily. It raises default risk sharply because the combined daily remittance can exceed what the business earns.

How do you find an existing MCA position on a bank statement?

Look for fixed, recurring ACH debits — usually the same amount every business day or week — going to a funder or a servicer. The debit descriptor often names the funder; the cadence and consistent amount are the giveaway.

Related terms

GlossaryTrue RevenueA merchant’s actual sales revenue after transfers, reversals, self-funding and prior advances are stripped out of gross deposits.ReadGlossaryHoldbackThe fixed percentage of daily receipts (or a fixed daily/weekly ACH amount) a funder collects until the advance is repaid.ReadGlossaryFactor RateThe multiplier that sets the total cost of a merchant cash advance — advance amount × factor rate = total payback.ReadGlossaryNon-Sufficient Funds (NSF)A transaction the bank rejects because the account lacks the funds to cover it — a direct signal of cash-flow strain that MCA underwriters count closely.Read

See mca position on a real statement

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