Successful businesses grow. Is yours ready?

When these good things happen, it often requires money to convert opportunity into reality. A busy dentist hires new technicians and buys new equipment, or perhaps rents or buys new office space. A bicycle retailer might buy more bicycles to have in the shop or carry a wider range of helmets. A successful restaurant owner may decide to enter a complementary business, such as catering.

Related: 3 Strategies for Getting Into Lending Shape

When you've decided to take your next step, you need to find the right place to secure your funding. Obvious choices include banks or credit unions. However, they can be difficult to qualify for without strong personal credit and a solid track record. Some banks offer loans backed by the Small Business Administration (SBA). If you're large enough, you may find yourself seeking a venture capital firm. Less-traditional options include online peer-to-peer lending platforms, microfinance institutions, accelerators and incubators; and angel investors may want a share of the business in exchange for their capital.

Good looks and shiny shoes aren't going to be enough to convince somebody to hand you money. No matter where you look, the money will come with strings. To provide a clear financial overview of your business, assemble and organize these 17 things:

Related: Are You Ready to Pitch Investors for Funding?

Your potential lender may want physical copies of your information, in which case you'll have to gather these items and bring them with you for them to photocopy or scan. They may have an online application that enables you to upload these documents as PDFs, word-processing or text files, spreadsheet files, scans or more.

As you gather these items, scanning or creating digital copies in a computer folder may be the simplest option. Back all of these up (if you aren't already) with a program like Apple Time Machine or Windows File History, or use an external hard drive, thumb drive or cloud drive (such as Dropbox or Google Drive). You may also find it helpful to have your tax accountant or lawyer keep these on file at their office.

One option that covers a lot of bases is a Document Management System (DMS). These capture receipts and more to generate financial reports. They can capture other non-financial data (such as a business plan or copies of your licenses or contracts).

Related: 3 Key Things You Need to Know About Financing Your Business

Applying for financing can be daunting, but it need not be complicated. If your records are well-organized to start with, you can just grab them and convert them to the format the lender requests. If they aren't, get started. Either way, good records make good financing and future success possible.