Equipment and asset finance
The asset has to earn its own repayments.
Vehicles, plant, machinery, fit-out and specialised equipment, funded against the asset itself and structured over the working life of the thing you are buying. The credit logic is direct, which is what makes it the most winnable facility on this list and the easiest one to structure badly.
Where this usually comes up
- Replacing or expanding a fleet, and needing to know what the work behind it actually carries
- Buying plant where the supplier's finance quote is the only number you have seen
- Funding equipment inside a business purchase, where the term should match the asset rather than the goodwill
- Holding equipment debt taken on at different times, on terms nobody has compared since
How it is assessed
What a credit team is actually deciding.
Any lender will describe the product. This is the part that decides whether your version of it gets written, and on what terms.
The security is defined, so the questions move to the earnings
An assessor can identify the asset, register an interest on the PPSR and form a view on what it would recover. That takes the security argument largely off the table and puts the weight on a different question: what does this asset add, how certain is the work behind it, and what happens to the repayments if that work starts three months late. That is a forecasting question before it is a lending one.
The term should match the working life
Five years of finance on an asset with three years of useful work left is a problem you meet in year four, still paying for something you have already replaced. The opposite error is just as common: a two-year term on a ten-year asset, which crushes the cash flow for no reason. Matching them is the single structural decision that matters most here.
It counts against everything you borrow next
Every repayment becomes an existing commitment in the next serviceability assessment. A fleet financed in March is routinely the reason a premises purchase does not service in September, and by then the structure is set. Where there is something larger coming, both get modelled together before either is committed to.
The balloon is a real number, not a smaller repayment.
A balloon lowers the monthly payment by leaving a lump sum owing at the end of the term. That is the right structure where the asset genuinely holds value to that point and you intend to refinance or replace it, and the wrong one where it is making an unaffordable asset look affordable. Both figures belong on the page together, which is what the calculator below does.
What we do with it
The file gets built before it gets lodged.
We model the asset into your actual financials before anything is lodged: the repayment at the assessment rate rather than the quoted one, the balloon stated in full, the earnings uplift tested against the work you have rather than the work you hope for, and the effect on what you can borrow next. Then we take it to the lenders whose appetite fits the asset. Where the numbers do not support it, you hear that instead, and the advisory fee is the same.
Work it out yourself
Run the numbers before you speak to anyone.
Free, no sign-up, and nothing you type is sent anywhere. Including to us.
General information only. Indicative, not a credit assessment, and not an offer of finance. Lending decisions rest with the lender and depend on your circumstances and their criteria.
Common questions
It depends on the asset, its age, and how long you have been trading. New or near-new equipment from a recognised supplier, bought by a business with a few years of returns behind it, is often financed in full. Older assets, private sales, specialised plant with a thin resale market and newer businesses all move that number. We would rather tell you the range before you go looking than have you find out at the wrong moment.
A balloon lowers the monthly repayment by leaving a lump sum owing at the end of the term, and both of those facts belong on the page together. It is the right structure where the asset genuinely holds value to that point and you intend to refinance or replace it. It is the wrong one where the balloon is being used to make an unaffordable asset look affordable. Our equipment finance calculator shows the repayment and the sum still owing side by side.
They differ in who owns the asset, how the GST is treated and how the deductions work, and the right answer depends on your structure, your GST position and how you account. That is a question for your registered tax agent and we will say so rather than guess at it. What we do is model the cash cost of each structure so the conversation with your accountant starts from real numbers.
Yes, and that is the part most people find out too late. Every equipment repayment is an existing commitment in the next serviceability assessment, so a fleet financed in March can be the reason a property purchase does not service in September. If there is something bigger coming, model both together before committing to either.
Often, and it usually improves the structure. Splitting the plant onto asset finance over its working life, rather than funding it inside a goodwill-heavy term loan, matches the term to the asset and frees capacity elsewhere in the deal. It has to be structured at the outset, because it is much harder to unpick after settlement.
Two ways this can work.
Referred to us for finance? You are in the right place either way. Either we arrange it, or we prepare the file for whoever does.
Have us arrange the finance
We build the analysis, write the submission and take it to the lenders who will actually do the deal, across 40+ of them. One team from the first set of figures to settlement, and one team holding the covenants after it.
Start a finance enquiryAlready have a broker or a banker you trust?
Keep them. We will build the file to the standard a credit team expects and work directly with whoever lodges it. Same models, same documents, same standards, and we do not take the lodgement on that engagement.
See the finance documentsWant a straight read on your deal?
Book a free call with Nick. Bring the numbers you have, and we will tell you the right service level and the fixed fee. No obligation.