Worth reading
Plain-English guides.
Australian business finance, minus the jargon. 89 pieces and counting — covering asset finance, invoice finance, commercial property, working capital and what lenders actually look for.
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BUSINESS FINANCE
Import finance vs letter of credit: when each makes sense
A letter of credit guarantees your supplier gets paid. Import finance pays them and gives you time before you have to fund it. They solve different problems, they are frequently confused, and plenty of importers need both.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Caveat loan vs second mortgage: which is faster, which is cheaper?
A caveat loan is faster because it does not require the first mortgagee's consent. A second mortgage is cheaper because it does. That single procedural difference explains the cost gap, the speed gap and which one suits your situation.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Funding a seasonal spike: the rolling-overdraft pattern that works
Seasonal businesses do not have a cash flow problem. They have a cash flow shape, and it repeats. The facility that suits it is an overdraft sized against the trough and put in place before the trough arrives, not during it.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Professional services finance: WIP lending and partnership buy-in funding
Law firms, accounting practices and consultancies have almost no hard assets and a great deal of unbilled time. That combination makes conventional secured lending awkward and makes work-in-progress and partnership funding the two facilities that actually matter.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Development finance: stacking senior debt, mezzanine and equity
Property development is funded in layers. Senior debt sits at the bottom and is cheapest, mezzanine fills the gap in the middle, and equity carries the risk at the top. Understanding the order of repayment explains almost everything about how each layer is priced.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Vendor finance vs broker-arranged asset finance: which is cheaper?
The finance offered at the point of sale is convenient and sometimes genuinely cheap, particularly when the manufacturer is subsidising it. It is also quoted against one lender. Knowing when to take it and when to compare is worth more than any single rate.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Transport and logistics finance: trucks, trailers and working capital combined
Transport businesses fund two things at once: the fleet, which is expensive and long-lived, and the gap between paying for fuel, wages and tolls now and being paid by the customer in sixty days. Get one right and the other wrong and the business still runs short.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Selective invoice finance: when you only want to fund one invoice
Selective invoice finance lets you advance against a single invoice rather than committing your whole debtor ledger to a facility. It suits one-off gaps, occasional large jobs, and businesses that do not want an ongoing arrangement.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Line of credit vs overdraft vs term loan: a cheat sheet
An overdraft sits on your trading account for unpredictable day-to-day gaps. A line of credit is a standing limit you draw down deliberately. A term loan is a lump sum for a defined purpose. Pick by the shape of the need, not by the rate.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Manufacturing equipment finance: combining asset finance with asset-based lending
Manufacturers carry two kinds of value: the machines on the floor and the working capital tied up in raw materials, work in progress and debtors. Funding them separately leaves money on the table. Combining asset finance with asset-based lending usually does not.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Owner-occupier commercial property: when buying beats renting
Buying the premises your business trades from turns rent into equity, but it also locks capital into a single asset and ties your property decision to your business decision. Here is the arithmetic and the judgement that sit behind the choice.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Medical equipment finance: specialist programs vs generalist lenders
Medical equipment finance in Australia splits between generalist asset lenders who will fund anything with a serial number and specialist programs written for registered practitioners. The difference shows up in what they will lend against and how much documentation they want.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Letters of credit explained: a plain-English guide for importers
A letter of credit is a bank's promise to pay your overseas supplier once they prove they shipped what was agreed. It solves the trust problem between two businesses that have never met, and it does so by replacing your credit with the bank's.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Hospitality fitout finance: structuring the deal across asset and working capital
A hospitality fitout is rarely one funding problem. The kitchen equipment, the joinery and the months before the venue trades at capacity each want a different facility, and the deals that go wrong are usually the ones funded as a single lump sum.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Merchant cash advance: when it is the right call and when it is not
A merchant cash advance gives you a lump sum today in exchange for a fixed percentage of your future card takings. It is fast, it flexes with trade, and it is expensive. Knowing which of those three matters most to your situation is the whole decision.
BUSINESS FINANCE
When to walk away from a bridging loan: the exit-strategy checklist
A bridging loan is only as good as its exit. If you cannot name the specific event that repays it, the date it happens and what you do if it slips, you do not have an exit strategy. You have a hope, and hope is expensive at bridging rates.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Refinancing a commercial property loan: when to switch
Refinancing a commercial property loan is worth doing when the numbers clear the switching costs, when the current facility is about to be repriced or reviewed, or when you need to release equity. Here is how to work out which of those applies to you.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Confidential invoice discounting: how it differs from factoring
Confidential invoice discounting advances money against your unpaid invoices without your customers ever knowing a financier is involved. You keep the collections relationship; the funder stays behind the scenes. Here is how it differs from factoring and who it suits.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Allied health practice equipment finance: a guide for clinicians
Allied health equipment finance funds the chairs, imaging, rehabilitation gear and practice fit-out that a clinic needs before it can bill for anything. Lenders treat clinicians differently from other small businesses, and knowing how changes what you should ask for.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Operating lease vs finance lease: which actually suits your business?
The difference between an operating lease and a finance lease is who carries the risk on what the asset is worth at the end. An operating lease leaves it with the lender; a finance lease puts it on you. That single distinction drives everything else.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Cash flow forecasting for small business: a one-hour-a-week routine
Cash flow forecasting for a small business does not need a finance team or a complicated model. It needs one hour a week, a thirteen-week horizon, and the discipline to update it before the week starts rather than after it goes wrong.
BUSINESS FINANCE
Tradies and chattel mortgage: financing the new ute without tying up cash
For most Australian tradies, a chattel mortgage is the default way to finance a work ute: you own it from day one, the vehicle is the security, and the deposit stays in the business. Here is how it works, what lenders look at, and where the fit-out fits in.
BUSINESS FINANCE
EOFY checklist for business owners: equipment, GST and the instant asset write-off
An end-of-financial-year checklist for Australian business owners: what to review on equipment purchases, how GST works on a financed asset, and why the instant asset write-off decision needs to be made months before 30 June rather than in the last week.