Missed one MCA payment: how to fix it

You missed a payment. The ACH bounced, your phone is ringing, and you’re trying to figure out if you just blew up your business or if this is fixable.

Short answer: One missed payment is usually fixable, if you move within 24 to 48 hours. Most funders will not accelerate the full balance over a single NSF, as long as you get in front of it fast, and make the funder whole before they decide you’re a problem. But every hour you wait, your options shrink. And if you’ve already missed two or three, you’re in a different conversation entirely.

Here’s what you need to do, in the order it actually matters.

Step 1: Figure out if the ACH is going to get retried

Most MCA funders will auto-retry the debit, usually within 1-2 business days. This matters for one reason: if the retry hits, and the money is there, the default conversation is over before it starts. If the retry hits, and the money isn’t there, you’ve now got two NSFs, two bank fees, two returned-payment fees from the funder, and you’re officially on their radar.

So the first question isn’t “should I call the funder.” The first question is: will there be money in the account when the retry comes through?

If yes — leave it alone. Let the retry clear. Don’t call anyone. Don’t explain anything. A single missed debit that gets cured on retry is a nonevent at most funders.

If no — keep reading.

Step 2: Call the funder before they call you

This is the part most business owners get wrong. They hide. They let the calls go to voicemail, they think they’ll buy a day or two, they tell themselves they’ll figure it out by Friday.

Do not do this. The MCA world runs on one rule: the funder who feels ignored is the funder who accelerates. The funder who hears from you first, on day one, with a plan – almost always works with you.

Call the collections line, or your original rep, and say three things:

• The payment bounced, and you know it
• Here’s why (be specific – a big receivable came in late, a customer chargeback, payroll ran heavy, whatever it actually was)
• Here’s when you’ll cure it (give a specific date, inside 5 business days if you possibly can)

That’s it. Don’t over-explain. Don’t negotiate a modification on this call. Don’t ask for a reduction. You are establishing one thing, and one thing only: you are a communicating borrower, not a running one. That distinction is worth more than people realize.

Step 3: Cure the missed payment, fast

A cure means you pay the missed debit, plus the returned-payment fee, plus any NSF fee the funder’s contract lets them add. This is usually $35 to $100 on top of the regular payment, depending on the funder.

You can cure it by:

• Wire (fastest, same day, funder sees it immediately)
• ACH push from your end (1-2 business days)
• Letting the retry pull through (only if you’re sure the money is there)

Wire is the move, if you have the wire fee budget. It closes the file. The funder’s collections notes get updated the same afternoon. You stop being a name on the at-risk list by end of business.

Step 4: Do not take another MCA to cover the missed payment

This is the single most common mistake, and it turns a one-payment problem, into a default.

Virtually every MCA agreement has a stacking clause. Taking additional financing – including another MCA, a business line of credit some funders flag, or in some cases even a personal loan used for the business – is a default event under your existing agreement. It doesn’t matter that you took the new money to pay the existing funder. The clause doesn’t care about your intent. It cares about the new UCC filing, or the new deposits hitting your bank statement.

Funders have software that reads your bank statements. They see the new deposit. They see the new daily debit. They know, usually within a week.

And here’s the part nobody tells you: the second MCA you took to save yourself from the first one, is now the thing that actually kills you. You’ve doubled the daily burn, you’ve triggered a default clause, and the first funder now has a legal reason to accelerate the full balance – whether or not you ever miss another payment.

Don’t stack. Find the cure money somewhere else – a receivable you can factor one-off, a customer you can ask for net-10 instead of net-30, a personal credit card used for a business expense that frees up cash, owner capital, anything. Stacking feels like a solution for about 72 hours. Then it’s the problem.

Step 5: After you cure, ask for a modification – but not yet

Once the missed payment is cured, and you’ve had a clean week of debits, then you can call back and have the real conversation: can we reduce the daily?

Most funders will entertain a temporary reduction (a “hardship” or “reduction”) if:

• You’ve been a paying customer for at least 60-90 days
• You cured the missed payment promptly, and communicated
• You can show a specific, time-bound reason (seasonal dip, lost a big account, etc.)
• You’re not already stacked

The reduction usually runs 30-60 days, sometimes at 50% of the daily, sometimes less. It doesn’t reduce what you owe – it just stretches the term. But it buys you oxygen.

Timing matters here. If you call asking for a reduction before you cure, you look like you’re negotiating from weakness. If you call after you cure, you look like an operator who hit a bump and is managing it. Same situation, totally different funder response.

What not to do, in the first 48 hours

• Do not close the bank account the ACH is hitting. This is an automatic default under almost every MCA contract. Funders watch for this, and it’s the #1 trigger for UCC notices going out to your customers.
• Do not switch payment processors without telling the funder. Same issue – it’s a default event under the contract, even if you had a legitimate business reason.
• Do not ignore the calls. See Step 2. The cost of one uncomfortable 4-minute phone call, is so much lower than the cost of an accelerated balance.
• Do not lie about why you missed. Funders have heard every version of every story. They can usually read your bank statements in real time through the login you gave them at funding. Whatever you tell them, should match what they can see.
• Do not sign a new, larger MCA to cure the old one. Again – stacking. It’s the trap.

When one missed payment is actually a bigger problem

Sometimes a missed payment isn’t the disease – it’s the symptom. If you’re here because the daily debit has genuinely outgrown what the business can support, curing this one payment is just going to put you back in the same spot next week, or the week after.

If that’s you, the honest answer is: a cure buys you time to make a real decision, not a permanent fix. The real decision is whether to restructure, settle, or refinance out of the position entirely – and that conversation is different from this one.

But get the cure done first. Every option you have – workout, settlement, consolidation, legal defense – is easier, cheaper, and faster when you’re current, than when you’re in default.