How to request an MCA reconciliation

What a reconciliation clause actually promises

A merchant cash advance is not a loan. It is the purchase of a slice of your future receivables at a discount, priced with a factor rate, and repaid through a fixed daily or weekly ACH debit. That fixed number was not pulled from nowhere. At funding, the amount was sized as roughly a percentage of an estimate of what your revenue would look like over the term. A reconciliation clause, sometimes called a true-up provision, is the piece of the contract built for the moment reality and that estimate stop matching.

In plain terms, the clause lets you ask the funder to compare your actual revenue for a period against the estimate that set your current remittance, and adjust the debit to match what you actually took in. Done properly, a real true-up also credits back any amount collected above your actual proportional share, not only the amount going forward. This is not a courtesy the funder is extending. It is a right many agreements grant on paper, and invoking it is closer to reading a warranty than asking for a break.

One caveat belongs up front. Not every MCA agreement contains a reconciliation clause, and among the ones that do, wording ranges from a genuinely usable mechanism to something narrow and discretionary. Some require the funder's approval at every step, some cap how often you can invoke it, and some only look forward and never true up what was already collected. Nothing here substitutes for reading the actual paragraph in your own agreement, which the next section covers.

This particular clause carries more weight than its plain language suggests. A workable reconciliation provision is part of what makes an MCA a genuine purchase of receivables rather than a fixed obligation in disguise, since it lets the payment move with your revenue. None of that changes what you personally owe under your own contract, but it explains why a funder is expected to honor the clause as written rather than as a favor granted at its discretion.

When it actually applies: a real revenue drop, not general strain

Reconciliation is built for one specific situation: your revenue for a stretch of the contract genuinely fell below what the remittance assumed. A lost anchor client, a slow season that ran longer than usual, a closure for repairs, a market-wide slowdown in your line of work. In each case, the number being pulled no longer reflects the number the business is actually generating, and that mismatch is exactly what the clause exists to correct.

It is not the tool for every kind of strain. If revenue is steady but the payment still feels heavy because it was sized aggressively to begin with, that is an affordability question, not a reconciliation situation, and the advance affordability tool and our guide on what to do if daily payments are too high map that path instead. If the real problem is two or three positions pulling from the same account at once, reconciling one of them will not fix a stack; our stacked MCA relief guide is built for that. And if a debit has already bounced, the sequence in what happens if you miss one MCA payment and the first 72 hours behind covers the immediate triage; this page is about the specific, proactive step of invoking the clause itself, whether or not anything has bounced yet.

The cleanest time to send a reconciliation request is before a payment fails, the moment a closed month's statements show the drop. A request sent while you are still current reads as a business managing its contract. One sent after a few returns reads the same on paper, but it arrives inside a file that already looks strained. Either way, the clause is available. Earlier is simply stronger.

Find the actual clause before you write anything

Every agreement uses its own language for this. Search your contract for reconciliation, true-up, adjustment of payment, or modification of remittance, commonly inside the payment or remittance section. Once you find it, read for five specific things before you draft anything:

• How often you can invoke it. Some agreements allow a request any time revenue drops; others limit it to monthly or quarterly review windows.
• What documentation it requires. Bank statements, processing statements, or a specific reporting format the funder wants attached.
• Where notice goes. Agreements typically carry a separate notices section naming an address, a fax number, or a specific email that differs from your everyday servicing contact.
• Whether it looks backward as well as forward. A full true-up credits amounts already over-collected against your actual receipts, not only future debits; a narrower clause only adjusts what comes next.
• What the funder is required to do once you send it. A stated response window, or silence if the agreement names none.

What a weak reconciliation clause looks like

Not all reconciliation language is equally real, and it is worth knowing the difference before you send anything. A clause left entirely to the funder's discretion, with no timeframe for a response, no defined documentation standard, and no mechanism to credit money already collected, is a far weaker promise than one with clear, mandatory language and a stated review window. Weigh what your contract actually says against what a strong version would say, and send your request under whatever version you actually have, not the one you wish you had signed.

A weak or silent clause does not mean the request is pointless. It changes what you can expect: treat it as an ask the funder can consider rather than a right with a deadline attached, follow up more proactively, and keep the same documentation habits either way. The paper trail matters just as much when the contract gives you less to stand on.

What to send: the four pieces that make a request usable

A reconciliation request is a written package, not a phone call. Four pieces make it usable:

• Bank statements. The last three to six months, showing the actual deposits the funder can compare against the estimate that set your remittance. If the business is card-heavy, attach processor settlement reports alongside the bank statements; a request that shows receipts, not just an ending balance, is the stronger one.
• A short written account of what changed. Three or four sentences: what happened, when it started, what revenue has done since. A lost contract, a seasonal shift, a closure. Specific and dated, not a hardship essay.
• The ask, stated in plain numbers. Your prior average revenue, or the estimate the remittance was based on if your funding documents state it, next to your actual current revenue, with a request that the remittance be adjusted to match the current figure under the reconciliation provision, and that any amount already collected above your actual proportional share be trued up.
• A request for written confirmation. Ask for the new amount and its effective date in writing, and ask for it by whatever date your agreement's response window establishes if it names one.
• If your funding documents do not spell out the exact revenue figure that set the remittance, use your best written record instead: the monthly revenue you provided during underwriting, or your average deposits from the months right before funding. A close, honest comparison is more useful than sending no comparison at all.

Where and how to send it

Send the request the way the notices section of your agreement specifies, to the address it names, not to whichever inbox you have been using for day-to-day servicing questions. Some agreements require certified mail, others accept email to a specific compliance or servicing address, a few route through an online portal. If the agreement is silent on method, send it more than one way: mail and email, both dated the same day, and ask for a read receipt or a confirming reply.

Reference your account or contract number, and use the word your own agreement uses for the clause, reconciliation, true-up, or adjustment, in the subject line and the first sentence. Keep a copy of everything you send, proof of delivery where you have it, and every reply. Courts weighing whether a reconciliation clause was genuinely usable have looked at whether the merchant actually invoked it on the record, not just claimed afterward that it did not work. A dated, delivered, specific request is exactly that record.

A written request you can adapt

The letter does not need to be long. It needs to hit every point the clause itself asks for. A working structure, with the bracketed pieces filled in from your own contract and your own numbers:

"This is a written request for reconciliation under [section reference] of my agreement dated [funding date], account [number]. From [start date] to [end date], actual revenue for the business was [$ actual revenue for the period], against the estimate of [$ estimate used to set the current remittance] that set the current remittance of [$ current daily or weekly debit amount]. Attached are bank statements and processing statements for this period supporting that figure. I am requesting that the remittance be adjusted to match actual revenue under this provision, and that any amount collected above the actual proportional share for this period be trued up as the agreement provides. Please confirm the adjusted amount and its effective date in writing."

Attach the statements as a single file if the notice method allows it, and keep the letter itself to a page. A funder reviewing this request is looking for a clean match between the ask and the documentation behind it, not persuasive writing.

What the funder owes you once the request is in

Under an agreement with a real reconciliation clause, the funder owes you a response measured against that clause, not against what feels reasonable in the moment. If the agreement names a review period, that period controls. If it is silent, your follow-up should ask for a specific date rather than leaving the request open-ended.

What a genuine true-up owes you, where the provision supports it: an adjusted remittance tied to your actual receipts, written confirmation of the new amount and when it starts, and, where the clause reaches backward, credit for anything collected above your actual proportional share. Wording varies by agreement, and some clauses are narrower than this, forward-looking only. Read your own before assuming the fuller version applies to you.

One number this does not change: what you owe in total. Reconciliation resizes the pace of the remittance to match your revenue. It does not shrink the purchase price of the advance. Lower payment, more breathing room. Not necessarily less total cost. Treat a granted reconciliation as a bridge that buys room, not as a discount.

Keep remitting the current amount while the request is pending. A letter asking for an adjustment is not the same as an adjustment, and stopping payment because you sent one can read as the kind of affirmative act many agreements treat as default, the same acceleration and personal-guarantee exposure covered in what actually happens in an MCA default. Wait for the funder's written confirmation before you treat the new number as real.

If the funder does not respond, or reconciliation is not the right fix

If you hear nothing back, follow up in writing, referencing your first request by date and restating the ask. If your agreement names a response window and it has passed, say so plainly: the provision required a response by a stated date, and that date has come and gone. Keep remitting the current amount throughout. Silence from a funder is a servicing failure to document, not a reason to stop paying on your own.

Reconciliation is also not the only tool, and knowing its edge matters. It addresses one contract, one remittance, one revenue drop. It does not fix a stack of positions competing for the same deposits, it is not a substitute for a live conversation about a broader restructure, and it is not the step to take once a lawsuit, a judgment, a filed confession of judgment, or a frozen account is already involved. At that point a qualified attorney reading your actual agreement is the right call, not a written contract request. Our guides on confessions of judgment and MCA agreements and attorneys versus brokers cover that line in more depth. Everything on this page is general information, not legal advice.

A single request is not necessarily the end of it. If revenue stays down past the period you documented, most usable clauses let you request another true-up rather than treating the first adjustment as permanent, so keep filing statements the same way going forward.

Short of that line, a reconciliation request is one of the cheapest, least dramatic moves available to a business whose revenue has genuinely dropped, and it costs nothing to send. If the trued-up remittance is still more than the business can carry, or if reconciliation buys time but does not solve an underlying stack, a relief and consolidation review is the next conversation: no credit pull to start, estimates only, actual terms vary by underwriting, and nothing about it is an offer of credit. Call or text 866-625-4413, Monday to Friday, 8a to 7p ET, and bring the same package: statements, the drop, and what you are asking for.