Business loan agreements
Most businesses that have borrowed more than once cannot say, without opening a drawer, what they are paying on each facility or what they pledged against it. The agreements are not long — they are just never in one place.
What a row is
One facility. Bundle the agreement with the documents that changed it — the facility or offer letter where the rate usually lives, any variation letters, the debenture or guarantee signed alongside it — so the row answers as the borrowing rather than as a single document. Put the most recent variation first, so a superseded rate is not the one reported. See bundles.
The starting columns
This is the Finance & Accounting group’s business loan agreement template. Most columns are text, which is right for a first pass: these are provisions rather than values, and the two that are values — the facility amount and whether early repayment is charged — are the ones you will sort and filter on.
| Column | Type | Prompt |
|---|---|---|
| Lender | Text | Who is the lender under this agreement? |
| Facility Amount | Number | What is the total amount of the facility? Answer as a number. |
| Interest Rate | Text | What interest rate applies, and is it fixed or referenced to a benchmark? |
| Repayment Terms | Text | Summarise the repayment schedule: term, instalments, and any balloon or bullet repayment. |
| Security Given | Text | What security, charge or personal guarantee does the borrower give under this agreement? |
| Financial Covenants | List | List the financial covenants the borrower must comply with. |
| Early Repayment Charge | Yes/No | Does this agreement charge a fee or penalty for repaying early? |
What it looks like filled in
| Row | Documents | Lender | Facility | Rate | Security | Early repayment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Term loan agreement.pdfFacility letter.pdf | Barclays p.1 | 250,000 Facility letter, p.1 | Base + 3.75%, variable Facility letter, p.2 | Debenture over company assets p.14 | Yes p.9 | |
| Asset finance agreement.pdf | Close Brothers p.1 | 86,400 p.1 | 8.9% fixed p.2 | Charge over the financed equipment p.5 | Yes p.6 | |
| Overdraft facility.pdfVariation letter.pdfPersonal guarantee.pdf | NatWest p.1 | 75,000 Variation letter, p.1 | Base + 4.25%, on demand Variation letter, p.1 | PG from two directors, capped at £50,000 Personal guarantee, p.2 | No p.4 |
Setting it up
- One workspace for the finance function, and upload every facility document you can find — including the ones you think are settled. Reading is charged once.
- Bundle each facility with its letters and security documents, most recent first, before building the table.
- Create the table and take the business loan agreement template.
- Run one facility you know well and read every citation. This is where you find out whether the rate column is reporting the agreement’s stated rate or the letter’s.
- Refine the prompts, then run the rest.
Columns worth adding
- Maturity date as a date column, separate from the repayment prose. The prose column is for understanding; the date column is what tells you what refinances this year.
- Monthly payment as a number. A register of facilities that cannot be summed is a filing cabinet with better lighting.
- Personal guarantee as yes/no, pulled out of the security column. It is the one term on the page that is not about the company, and directors tend to want it answerable at a glance.
- Facility type as a category — term loan, overdraft, invoice finance, asset finance, lease — which is usually the first cut anyone wants over the register.
What to check before relying on it
- The rate usually lives outside the agreement. If facility and offer letters are not in the bundle, the rate column reports whatever the main agreement says and misses the letter that set it. Bundle them.
- “Security” and “guarantee” are different questions. A debenture binds the company; a personal guarantee binds a person. A single security column will happily report one and not the other — which is why the extra yes/no column above earns its place.
- Say which clause to read from. These documents name the same terms in the definitions, the operative clauses and the schedules. A prompt that says where to look is doing real work — see columns.
Roughly what it costs
Twenty facilities averaging 30 pages is 600 pages — 600 credits, $1.50, once. Six typed columns across twenty rows is 480 credits, and the covenants list column is a further 240, because a list column costs more per cell than a typed one. About $3.30 for the register at par, and less with a bulk top-up. See how credits work.
The template’s prompts are illustrative starting points, not legal or financial definitions, and nothing here is advice about your facilities.