Set up your first day in MCA Pilot in order: activate your application form, verify one test deal, prepare funder criteria, connect your email, submit the deal, and confirm funder replies process automatically. Each phase links the detailed guide, so use this page as your checklist and open the details when you need them.
Before you start
Have three things ready before you begin: your application form link or builder access, a funder criteria sheet you can share, and access to the mailbox that sends submissions. First-time intake setup is done with our support team, so expect to hand over the form link and wait for confirmation.
Activate your application form
Deals will not appear until our team activates your integration. Adding the webhook URL to your form is only the first step: every application form has different fields, so we build a custom field mapping for your form before submissions can create deals.
Send your form link or builder access through the blue chat icon in MCA Pilot or to [email protected].
Wait for our confirmation in chat that the integration is live. We usually have it live within a few hours on business days, and always within one business day.
Each intake path (Jotform, DocuSeal, a custom form, GoHighLevel / MCA Simplified, or a webhook with a separate file form) has its own setup guide for rep assignment and file delivery. Pick your path in Application forms. If your platform is not listed, see How to integrate your application form with MCA Pilot.
If reps will own their own deals, each rep needs their form ID linked on their profile so new deals auto-assign to them. The setup guide for your intake path covers this.
Send one test application and verify the deal
Submit one test application with realistic merchant data and confirm the deal before going live. Replaying the same submission can create a duplicate deal instead of updating the existing one, so send a new test if you need another.
Submit a test application with realistic merchant data.
Open MCA Pilot and confirm the deal appears.
Confirm the deal is assigned to the expected rep.
Confirm the business name, owner details, and monthly revenue match what you submitted.
If the form includes uploads, confirm the files appear in the Bank Statements field.
Open the Underwrite tab and run AI Docs Check to confirm the application and required statements are complete.
Add funders and their criteria
Matching compares the deal's criteria against each funder's criteria, so a funder only appears as a match when both sides are filled out.
Add each funder you work with. See How to Add Funders into MCA Pilot.
On each funder's page, fill in the Criteria tab, or load a criteria sheet with AI Scan Criteria and review what it filled in.
Review every value after an AI Scan Criteria run. Scans use a least-restrictive interpretation for unclear values and there is no automatic undo.
Matching results are a shortlist, not an approval decision. Your lenders make the final underwriting call. The full workflow, including what to check when an expected funder does not appear, is in How to match funders automatically for a deal?
Connect your email for submissions
Submissions leave by email, so add a sender before your first submission. Create it on your profile's Senders tab, add yourself under Users, send a test email to verify it, and set it as your default submission sender under Defaults on the profile's Details tab.
Exact field values for Gmail, Microsoft, and SendGrid are in Connect Your Email to MCA Pilot.
Submit the test deal
Submitting sends a separate email to each funder you select and logs every submission in the Submissions table.
Open the deal and click Submit.
Confirm Send from shows the sender you want.
Confirm your files are in order in the App and banks field under the Underwrite tab.
On the Funders tab, select the checkbox for each funder you want, click Add to queue, then click Submit and confirm.
To test without emailing real funders, create a test funder that uses your own email address, add it on the test deal, and submit as usual.
A deal being created does not mean it is ready to send to funders. Many funder integrations require specific fields, so a submission with missing merchant data or documents can still be blocked when you try to submit.
Enable reply processing
Sending and reading replies are separate setups, and the most common first-week miss is finishing only the sending side. Enable AI Processing on the mailbox sender so MCA Pilot reads declines, offers, and required stipulations from your inbox.
On your profile's Senders tab, hover over the sender, click Edit, check AI Processing, and click Confirm.
Enter your IMAP credentials. They are separate from your SMTP settings, and you update the SMTP and IMAP passwords together. Provider-specific values are in Configure Your IMAP Settings.
Once enabled, MCA Pilot checks the inbox every 5 minutes. There is no separate self-serve connection test for IMAP; check the IMAP Status field on the sender for connection updates.
Confirm your first funder response processes
Reply a test email from a funder address to your submission mailbox, then check that MCA Pilot picked it up. After a reply arrives, open the Submissions table and look at the AI column checkbox: a checked box means AI created or updated the submission or offer, and an unchecked box means the email was not matched or was classified as Other.
An approved response can create an offer and set the submission to Approved, a decline sets it to Declined, and a pending response requests the listed information. If the funder replies from a different email domain than the one you submit to, add that reply domain on the funder under the Submission Method tab, Additional domains. See Map funder reply domains for approval and decline emails.
If the response never matches or the status does not update, work through Troubleshooting AI Processing for funder responses.
What's next
When a funder approves, mark the submission as approved to create an offer: How to mark a Submission as approved. When the deal closes, marking the selected offer as Funded creates the advance, payments, and distributions: How to Mark an Offer as Funded (Create an Advance).