One of the biggest challenges any company – no matter the size – faces is budgeting and overhead. From the Fortune 500 to a new start-up, knowing where the money is and where it needs to go is critical to understanding what success is going to look like and how you’re getting there.
The trouble, of course, is that no matter how busy your company is, every once in awhile, you have to fall back on some cash reserves because your accounts receivable hasn’t caught up with your accounts payable. For the “big” guys, this is usually not a problem, but for small businesses – and especially in the trades – this can mean late payments, late fees, and may impact your future ability to use credit for your business. If times are tough, like they have been for a lot of companies in western Canada for a few years, it can even impact your personal financial situation.
It’s really a catch-22; as a business owner, you need equipment to do the job to be able to make the money to pay for the equipment to do the job! There has to be a better way.
There is. Lease what you need. To put it simply, leasing the equipment and vehicles you require can provide smaller (and larger) businesses the cash they need for the tools they need to get the job done. In fact, it’s estimated that nearly 80% of businesses in North America lease at least a percentage of the tools, equipment, and vehicles that they use in their business. Are you using this tool to grow your own business?
“Leasing” is a very broad term for a lot of different financial loan packages where a lender effectively buys a piece of equipment or a vehicle and then “rents” it to a business for a specified length of time for a set monthly fee. At the end of the lease, the business can elect to purchase the vehicle or equipment outright for a specific amount (or the predetermined fair market value), they can return it and lease again, or they can continue to lease the same asset – often for a lower monthly fee.
What does this mean for you, as a business owner who needs a specialized vehicle or one that has been outfitted specially for a certain task? For starters, it means not having to dip into cash or lines of credit for a bank loan or accruing the costs of ownership upfront. Just as importantly, it also means that you still have some of the deductions for business expenses as if you had bought the asset while; at the same time, you don’t have to deal with down payments or even pay GST or PST to take delivery of the vehicle … and that can mean a substantial savings right from the start.
Most of all, though, it means you can have the vehicle you need, outfitted how you need it to be, for a much better price than if you owned it yourself, because Expertec can handle all your leasing needs when it comes to setting up and outfitting the truck, van, or equipment you need.
That’s right – Expertec has a full leasing program now for companies and individuals that qualify. Even better? That program can be tailored to cover any combination of the vehicle and the upfitting. Need both? Just one of them? No problem – we’ve got a way to help you.
Now, leasing makes sense in what the experts call an “economy of scale” – that is to say, you wouldn’t want to lease a toolbox – but what we’re seeing here at Expertec is that companies that are looking to expand their geographic range – the suburbs on the other side of town, for example. These types of companies need another vehicle to handle the workload, but let’s face it, sometimes the price tag doesn’t make sense on a new route.
Leasing is the perfect option in that case. You’ll have the rig you need to do the work at a much smaller monthly cost while you establish the new area and, as the business grows, you can turn the income from that new market into a viable money maker, not just paying the debt service on the rig you bought.
At the same time, leasing honestly isn’t for everyone. It is, however, a solution for a lot of companies that are looking to expand and grow in the challenging times and as such, it is another tool that we can use to help our customers and friends in industry and the trades. Expertec is not just in the business of outfitting vehicles, we’re in the solution business.
If you’d like to find out more about our leasing options and how the process works, why not ring us up or you can simply click here and get started!