Financing for landscaping companies
A trade with two seasons: one where the crews cannot keep up, and one where the equipment sits. Financing usually bridges the second to be ready for the first.
How the money reads
An underwriter reads six months of statements. This is what yours usually says.
- Revenue concentrates in the growing season, with a genuinely quiet winter.
- Contract and maintenance work, where you have it, levels the year and reads well.
- Six months of statements taken in February look very different from six taken in August — both are fine, and both are read in context.
The year turns on once and off once. The equipment has to be bought and the crew hired before the line starts climbing, which is why the money is wanted in February rather than in June.
The thing that slows these files down
Apply before the season. A file put in during the March scramble competes for your attention at the exact moment you have none.
What it usually pays for
- Mowers, trucks, trailers and attachments before the season
- Payroll through the spring ramp-up
- Snow equipment on the other side of the year
What an underwriter asks
The same four things decide every file: revenue and how long you have been making it, the cash cushion, bounced payments, and what you already pay other lenders. Here is what those look like in this trade.
- What does the winter look like in the account?
- A genuinely quiet December is normal in this trade and it is read as normal. What a lender is looking for is whether the quiet months are survived on a cushion or on an overdraft.
- How much of the book is contracted?
- Maintenance agreements and snow contracts level a year that is otherwise two seasons. Contracted revenue is the single strongest thing a landscaping file can have in it.
- What is already financed?
- Mowers, trucks and trailers are often on finance already, and what you are already paying decides how much room is left for the next thing.
- 1Revenue, and how longThe monthly average, and the years behind it
- 2The cash cushionAverage daily balance, against a month of revenue
- 3Bounced paymentsNSF and returned items over ninety days
Totalled against monthly revenue and capped at 20% — the ceiling we pre-qualify to. This is the one that binds: two advances already running leaves less room than none, however good the rest looks.
The split shown is an example, not your file. Yours is read by a person, from your own statements.
Asking for the right amount
Size equipment against the quote and payroll against the ramp. A spring hiring bridge is easier to price when it is described as eight weeks of crew rather than as working capital.
Across every trade the anchor is the same: roughly a month of revenue, and never more than the statements support. What you already pay other lenders matters as much as what you are asking for, and you need an average of at least $20,000 a month to qualify at all.
When to ask
February and March, before the season. A file sent in May is asking for a decision in the weeks you have least attention to give it, and the equipment is wanted before the work starts rather than during it.
Have these ready as well
On top of the standard file — six months of statements, your incorporation documents, your CRA business number and photo ID.
- Quotes for the equipment you are financing
- Copies of maintenance or snow contracts, if you hold them
- Certificates of insurance, and workers' compensation clearance if you carry crew
- Statements covering a full winter if you have them — the quiet months are evidence, not a gap
What usually fits
In this order, more often than not — though the file decides, not the trade.
Equipment financing
The oven, the van, the line. Financed against the thing itself, so the payment sits against what the thing earns.
$10,000 – $1,000,000
Revenue-based line of credit
Draw what you need, pay for what you draw, and the limit moves with your revenue. For months that are uneven, not short.
Up to $500,000
Term loans
A fixed amount, a fixed schedule, and nothing pledged against it. The straightest answer when you know the number and the timeline.
$5,000 – $2,000,000
Where these files get harder
None of these is an automatic no. They are the things that turn a one-day decision into a conversation, and all of them are better said by you than found by an underwriter.
- A first winter with no contracted work under it
- Equipment registered personally rather than to the company
- Six months of statements that happen to be the six quiet ones, with nothing said about it
Any of these is one sentence in the box that asks what the money is for.
Said on the way in it costs you nothing. Found in the statements by somebody who then has to ask, it costs a day.
Questions
It is read in context, and saying so helps. An underwriter who knows the window is the off-season reads the numbers against the season rather than against the year.
Still deciding? Talk to a specialist — no application required.
Worth reading next
- GuideWhy we ask for six months of statementsWhat an underwriter actually reads in your bank statements, and why it is usually better for you than a credit score.
- GuideHow much can my business actually borrow?Why the number comes from your deposits rather than your revenue, and the four things that move it up or down.
Other trades
See what you qualify for.
About ten minutes, most of it finding your statements. Applying never touches your credit score.