- Managing financial goals is one of the many tasks business owners and entrepreneurs have on their plates on a daily basis.
- Nav Prime is a business bundle that helps you simplify your small business finances and build up credit to get better financing.
- Nav Prime includes the Nav Prime Card, up to six detailed credit reports, and a business checking account.
Brief Background on Nav Prime as a New Financial Solution
Small business owners can think of Nav Prime as the comprehensive tool that helps manage your business finances to help you qualify for better business financing. Nav Prime can bring bigger growth when you take advantage of its three main features:
- Nav Prime Card: A charge card that reports as a tradeline, helping you build business credit with regular use and on-time payments.
- Detailed Credit Reports: Monitor your credit and get instant alerts when anything changes to stay on top of your credit scores.
- Nav Business Checking Account: Manage your business finances to make better financial decisions. A business checking account is a requirement on many business loan applications, which is why Nav built one into Nav Prime.
Improve your decision-making skills by seeing the big picture of your small business finances while you’re on your path to growth.
Traditional Financial Management vs. Financial Management With Nav Prime
Traditional financial management providers are often segmented and require many different products and services to get to where you need to go. You may use one account to track cash flow and financial performance, another account for vendor credit, and several separate accounts to track your business credit scores. Tracking and managing all of these different accounts takes a lot of time, energy, and money.
That’s why Nav Prime is here — to give you all of this in one place. Financial technology (fintech) companies like Nav are providing a digital transformation in a notoriously old-school banking industry using new technologies. The Nav team knows you’re busy, so the goal is to make your life easier. You can improve your operational efficiency, financial planning, and eligibility for business funding with a single solution.
What Nav Prime Provides Small Businesses
Here are the top benefits of using the new Nav Prime initiative for your small business.
1. Detailed Credit Reports
You know that tracking your personal and business credit scores is essential for your business to grow. You can get all six credit scores that matter in one place with Nav Prime. There’s no paying for multiple accounts — it would cost over $130 per month to get all your reports elsewhere. You also can avoid the time it takes to log in and track all those different accounts.
Additionally, you’ll get real-time alerts when anything changes so you can stay up to date and take action immediately when needed. Learn more on how to establish business credit in this guide from Nav’s experts.
2. Two tradelines
With Nav Prime, you have access to two business tradelines:
- One is your monthly payment for Nav Prime.
- The other is everyday use of your Nav Prime Card.
Business tradelines are credit accounts that vendors or suppliers offer to businesses that help with cash flow constraints. Basically, you buy something and pay later, often in 30 to 90 days. On-time payments to these tradeline accounts can help build business credit.
Your monthly on-time payment to Nav is one tradeline that gets reported to all three major credit bureaus. Using your Nav Prime Card and paying it off on time is one additional tradeline. You’ll need at least two established tradelines (sometimes three, depending on the lender) to qualify for business financing, so using Nav Prime can directly help your business get better funding.
3. Nav Prime Card
The Nav Prime Card is a daily repayment charge card that you can use on business expenses — and get credit every time you use it. You can get the Nav Prime Card with no credit check, so there won’t be an impact on your credit scores when you apply. Also, you won’t be required to put down a security deposit. Instead, you’ll link your bank account to make daily repayments so you don’t go over your credit limit. You can use automation to make repayments easier.
To learn more about charge cards vs. credit cards, check out this breakdown from Nav.
4. Nav Business Checking
It’s essential to separate your personal and business finances for tax and liability purposes. A Nav Business Checking account allows you to do exactly that, and it’s built into Nav Prime. Keeping your finances separate makes financial reporting much easier since your expenses aren’t all mixed together. And if you’re a registered business (meaning not a sole proprietorship), you are legally required to keep your finances separate. Otherwise, you risk piercing the corporate veil.
Also, you’ll usually need a business checking account to qualify for small business loans. Using your Nav Business Checking account gets you one step closer to the business funding you need.
5. Simpler business financial health
Understanding your business’s financial health is the most important part of keeping your operations up and running. With its user-friendly mobile app, Nav Prime gives you financial insights in your pocket.
Make cash flow management easier with Nav’s Cash Flow Tool that offers valuable insights. Knowing what’s going on with your business finances can help increase profitability since you have the information you need to make better decisions. Your financial data is always safe and secure as well.
Better Predict Financial Health Outcomes
Setting your business up to qualify for more funding options (or funding with better terms) using Nav Prime’s tools may dramatically increase your business’s financial health and long-term outcomes. Access to business financing when you need it — or before you need it — can make a world of difference in your ability to succeed.
According to the Chamber of Commerce, one-third of businesses go through challenges or failure because they don’t have the funding they need.
Take steps to get to the funding you need by optimizing your small business finances with Nav Prime.
Get the Most Out of Nav Prime
Nav Prime is here to help with streamlining your business financial management. There are a few actions you can take to maximize the benefits of Nav Prime:
- Use the Nav Prime Card: You’ll need to make charges on your card for it to be counted as a tradeline.
- Automate daily payments: Nav reports positive payments to the three major business credit bureaus, so missing a payment won’t help toward building your business credit.
- Fund your business checking account: Using your Nav Business Checking account is the easiest way to make payments on your Nav Prime Card, but you have to make sure your checking account is funded first.
- Connect to Cash Flow: Connect your accounts safely and securely to Nav’s Cash Flow Tool to get actionable insights into your business’s cash flow.
If you have any questions about Nav Prime and how to use it, please refer to the Nav Prime page on our website.
*Nav Technologies, Inc. is a financial technology company and not a bank. Banking services provided by Thread Bank, Member FDIC. The Nav Visa® Business Debit Card and the Nav Prime Charge Card are issued by Thread Bank pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be used everywhere Visa cards are accepted. See Cardholder Terms for additional details. FDIC insurance is available for funds on deposit through Thread Bank, Member FDIC. All other features of the Nav Prime membership are not associated with Thread Bank.
This article was originally written on March 26, 2024 and updated on December 6, 2024.
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