Scenario
A borrower owns a business and says they make plenty of money. The file can work, but only if the originator separates taxable income, usable add-backs, business liquidity, and product fit early.
Season 1 curriculum
Free roomModule 0 - Start Here9 min · Jim + Janice
Lesson 6 · Artifact walkthrough
Self-Employed Intake One-Pager
Give members a practical intake sheet they can use before wasting a week on the wrong income path.
Learner Outcome
The member can run a first-pass self-employed intake without promising approval.
Skool summary
A one-page intake for self-employed borrowers: tax return shape, current-year story, business assets, reserves, and pivot triggers.
1
What the one-pager is for
The one-pager is not a pre-qualification engine. It is a conversation and intake tool. It helps you avoid the classic trap: hearing 'business owner with strong revenue' and assuming the tax return will support the loan. Revenue is not qualifying income. Deposits are not automatically income. Cash in the business is not automatically usable reserves.
2
The four early questions
Ask what entity type the borrower has, what returns are filed, whether current-year income is up or down, and where reserves live. Those four answers tell you whether you are looking at agency income, add-back work, a bank-statement path, DSCR, or a pause until documents are cleaner.
3
Pivot triggers
Stop forcing an agency path when filed income is materially short, current-year trend is declining without a strong explanation, required reserves are trapped in a business account, or the borrower needs a close date that does not allow a full income autopsy.
Homework
- Use the one-pager on one anonymized past file.
- Identify which question would have saved the most time.