Personal Guarantee Guide

For a specific wholesale credit application, require one or more company owners to sign a personal guarantee — with a separate FCRA written authorisation. B2B Onboard captures the two acceptances and a signed document with an audit trail. It does not pull credit, score, decide, or opine on enforceability.

Available on Growth and Pro (with credit applications).

What it is — and what it isn’t

A personal guarantee is a conditional, US-oriented instrument: a company owner agrees to be secondarily liable for the company’s trade-credit obligations. It is bound to a specific credit application — the signed record references the credit application it was signed against.

  • It collects each guarantor’s identity (full legal name, home address, email, phone, ownership %) on a secure, tokenised signing portal.
  • It records two separate acceptances — one for the personal guarantee, and a distinct one for the FCRA written authorisation — captured independently, both required.
  • It produces a signed artifact — a combined PDF (your guarantee wording + your FCRA authorisation + an appended acceptance certificate) plus the captured IP, timestamp, version, and an optional drawn signature.
  • It surfaces the status — required / pending / signed — on the company’s Guarantee card and in the Action required worklist.

The guarantee wording and the FCRA authorisation text are yours. Both are merchant- and counsel-supplied. B2B Onboard never authors, infers, or summarises-as-advice either text. It does not pull an owner’s credit, score, underwrite, advance funds, or report to a credit bureau. A guarantor is secondarily liable, so US adverse-action obligations differ from a co-applicant’s — that determination and any notice are your (your counsel’s) responsibility, not the app’s. The app does not “ensure compliance” — it is decision support only.

Publishing your wording

In Settings › Guarantee, upload two PDFs with a version label and publish: your counsel-supplied personal-guarantee wording, and your separate FCRA written-authorisation text. The version label identifies which wording was in force when a guarantor signs, and is recorded on every signed artifact.

Until you publish a version, there is nothing to sign — the signing link shows a neutral state. Publishing a new version does not change any previously signed artifact; each one keeps the version it was signed against.

Sending the signing link

A guarantee is always tied to a company’s credit application, so it only applies once a credit application exists. From the company’s page, open the Personal guarantee card and choose Send guarantee link to mint a secure, single-use, expiring magic link you can copy and share (or Email link to confirm the contact on file). Issuing a link marks the guarantee required and pending on the credit relationship.

The guarantor opens the link, enters each owner’s identity, reviews the two linked PDFs, checks the two separate acceptance boxes, types their name, and optionally draws a signature. The link is single-use — it is consumed on submission. To capture multiple owners who sign separately, issue one link per signing session.

What gets recorded

On submission, B2B Onboard requires both the guarantee acceptance and the FCRA authorisation — if either is missing the submission is rejected. It then captures the connecting IP, the timestamp, and the in-force version, stores the drawn-signature image (if any), and generates a combined signed PDF: your guarantee wording, followed by your FCRA authorisation, followed by an acceptance-certificate page that lists the signer, the guarantor identities, both acceptance flags, the version, the referenced credit application, and the signature.

The signed artifact is immutable — it is never edited or overwritten. Each guarantor’s signed PDF is available to Preview or Download from the company’s Personal guarantee card.

Staying on top of pending guarantees

When a guarantee is required but unsigned, the company appears in your Action required worklist with a Guarantee review badge. Open the row to jump to the company’s Personal guarantee card to re-send the link or review the signed document. This is informational — it does not gate or block your credit decision. Whether a signed guarantee is a condition of approval is yours to decide.

Plan availability

Personal guarantees are a credit-module feature, available on the Growth and Pro plans alongside credit applications. On lower plans, the Guarantee settings tab and card show an upgrade prompt and no links can be generated.