Financing a Business – Equipment Leasing Vs Business Loans and Cash

Posted on June 13, 2011 by admin



There are three main options when financing your business equipment: paying cash, bank business loans and equipment leasing.

To better explain the different options of financing a business, we’ll use a real world example.

ABC Foundry – A Real World Business Financing Example

ABC Foundry needed to upgrade its melting equipment to meet the increased demand for truck replacement parts they are projecting to have in the next several years. The key equipment included two Power Supplies – 480 V input; two sets of high conductivity water cooled drop bars; two sets of Water Cooled Power Leads; two steel frame furnaces; a nonferrous closed pressurized water cooling system; and three electric cranes. Their total cost was $340,000.

In this example, management considered the options of equipment leasing, bank business loans or paying directly with cash.

Equipment Leasing vs. Cash

Due to ABC Foundry’s overall leverage, cash was not a viable option for financing its business. Even if it had the cash available, paying cash may not have been the right decision. According to a Dun and Bradstreet survey, the average company earns 15% on the money that is left in the business. Even if earnings were at 10%, the company is still better off using equipment leasing. Furthermore these examples don’t include the positive tax consequences of writing off the lease payments. Equipment leasing also provides a hedge against inflation and keeps cash available for tougher times. Paying cash requires paying for the equipment before it is productive.

Equipment Leasing vs. Business Loans

The management of ABC Foundry quickly dismissed cash as an option, then considered a business loan from a bank. The company had $300,000 available on its $500,000 credit line, and the bank was willing to restructure the relationship to include the business equipment loan with a 20% down payment.

The bank offered a five year 9% loan with a down payment of $67,484, the amount financed would have been a loan of $269,934 and monthly payments would be $5,605. The terms were favorable but the net result would stretch the company’s bank credit availability.

The Option Chosen for Financing a Business

After considering the alternatives for financing their business equipment, management decided to choose equipment leasing over business loans or cash. This allowed them to conserve the cash required for the bank loan down payment, and preserve the company’s bank borrowing capacity to support the company’s anticipated growth. The lease also gave them greater tax benefits.

This is one example of how leasing became an important ingredient of a capital expenditure program. Although equipment leasing isn’t always the answer when financing a business, leasing is one of the most flexible means of equipment financing for a business. Leasing comes in all shapes and sizes and can make sense for small and large equipment of all types. Consider all types of equipment leases when making your business financing decision.

Choosing an Equipment Leasing Company for Financing a Business

After deciding that your company wants to lease equipment, you have to decide where to go to for a leasing company. There are several different categories of lease companies based on size of the transactions that companies work with. A micro-ticket company only works with leases between $1,000-$25,000, a small ticket lease company is between $5,000-$250,000, a mid-ticket lease company is $250,000-$5MM, and a large ticket lease company is over $5MM.

Investigate all of your options for financing a business – business loans, cash and equipment leasing. Is equipment leasing right for your business?

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Business Management – Family Operations

Posted on June 13, 2011 by admin



One of the worse case scenario of family members working for a company that I’ve come across was that of a business I called one day. This company was both a client and a customer. As the new account manager of the organization I represented, I needed to meet their account manager who was also the owner, since we would be crossing paths many times and would be working together on a lot of projects.

After identifying myself to the receptionist who answered the phone, I asked to speak to our account manager. She said that she didn’t know who that would be and asked what I wanted. I told her and she said that she could help me. Respecting the fact that she may have been more than a receptionist – we have a lot of that now with the corporate downsizing of the last decades, people sharing the telephone answering — I began to relay some information and then asked pertinent questions about equipment used in our mutual business.

After giving a couple of foolish responses and comments, I realized she was the wrong person to talk to. She got all excited and speaking of my organization she said, “Oh not again, they keep getting new people and we have to start to train them all over again, and went on and on.

I patiently said to her that she didn’t have to train me, because I had been in my own graphics business for several years and was perfectly in tune with the operation. She replied, “Yea, that’s what they all say”. I politely asked again if I could speak to the person who looks after our account. She said she was that person. Subsequently I found out that she did the billing and thus, to her, “account” meant accounting.

I tried re-wording to “sales account”, “account executive”, “the sales representative who looks after this company”, but it didn’t do any good. To make a long story short, finally, one day I had to call on another matter and she said I would have to “talk to John”. I asked her who John was and she got excited again and said, “Well, he’s just John, he’s John”.

Since John wasn’t there, I left a message for him to call me. When John called me back, that’s when I found out he was our sales representative, account manager and production coordinator all rolled into one as well as the owner of the company. And then, the mystery unveiled itself as to why “John was just John” – she was his mother.

It’s nice to have your mother help out but, putting her at the front desk without experience and training is a bit daring. Your whole company is judged there by visitors and callers who connect with a lot of other companies.

In another example, I was operations manager for a small company in the hotel magazine business. The receptionist was the sister of the owner of the company. She would come in late every morning after 9 o’clock. When she was approached on the matter, she would explain that it wasn’t her fault, “the bus didn’t arrive before 8:45. She was a very soft spoken, pleasant young girl, but she didn’t believe that she should have to take the 8:30 bus. But as the sister of the owner, it was a difficult problem to deal with, since he wasn’t bothered with it. In other words, she was his sister and she could come in late every morning.

Working with family members can be very difficult for both the family and non-family members. First, members of a family operation must forget they are family when they step into the business premises. They must give themselves titles with attached responsibilities. Even if they wear various hats — then have various business cards with the various titles/responsibilities. All members should be following regular training programs, even more so than any other businesses. They should treat one another in front of customers and suppliers in such a way that these people wouldn’t even have a clue that they were a family team. That goes for a husband and wife operation or father/son, brother/sister, etc.

Some years ago, I was in the sailboat business with my husband — our first business when we were in our twenties. Having both been working in the corporate world prior, we would always strive to operate in a professional manner, keeping both our areas of responsibilities separate. I looked after finance and administration and my husband looked after sales and service. When visitors, customers and suppliers came in for either of these areas of business, we would take them to the one in charge.

When it comes to business management in a family operation, it is critical to make sure that the people who are placed in their positions are experienced or have been given proper training, because not only will it put stress within the company but it can ruin the total reputation of the company. Constant professional, outside training is the survival key here, more than in non-family organizations. /dmh

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Metrics For Finance And Why They Are Needed

Posted on June 10, 2011 by admin



Profitability is important to every businessman. For this reason, they make sure that their finances are handled very well. The last thing they want is for their businesses to get bad reputation, which is why they find ways to effectively manage their finances. Among the things that companies do as a measure is hiring qualified individuals to do financial tasks. Another effective move is implementing the right metrics for finance.

Finance metrics are series of activities, mostly concerning finance, that are aimed at improving the growth of the company. Take note though that finance metrics may not be limited to finance alone. For instance, it can cover clients. Customer service is not only for marketing or advertising employees, but it is also an utmost concern, even for finance people. Metrics are usually referred to as a plan or program. There are effective metrics, and there are failures as well. To measure this, an analysis on the results of the implemented plan is required.

When speaking of the financial aspect of a business, these may include details about market share, revenues, cost, and many others. Thus, owners are challenged to come up with plans that would touch the different areas of finance. There are three important things to consider when creating a plan – goal, implementation, and analysis.

Members of a team assigned to create financial plans should determine the goals of their proposal. Goals are necessary for they dictate the direction of the plan. In finance, a common goal is to reduce cost. Finance professionals are at all times looking into ways on how the company can minimize expenditures. Doing so would normally result to increase in profit.

On the implementation stage, a thorough discussion should be made. All areas of the plan, from people to budget, must be taken into account. It is also relevant that policies for the implementation of the plan should be reviewed. Likewise, activities should be lined up in accordance with the goals of the plan. The team must be able to identify problems that may be encountered along the way. Likewise, ready solutions are needed.

The important part of the process is the analysis. Here, the effectiveness of the financial plan is being measured. Goals are used as bases to determine whether the plan is successful or not. Therefore, if the company is able to reduce cost then the plan can be qualified as effective. Also in this stage, finance metrics are applied. These metrics help assess both the good and bad points of the plan. The nice thing about having metrics is that companies are given the chance to address lapses of the plan.

Accepting the results derived from the finance metrics would also matter. Companies differ in the way they react to results. Some would take such as challenges while some may store these merely for statistics only and do nothing. However, the appropriate thing to do is accept the challenge. This means that companies should instead use the results to improve their performance.

Most business owners, however, see the importance of using metrics for finance for their company’s growth. Thus, they do not just ignore its results. Oftentimes, they use these to implement changes, either in their operations or the organization itself.

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