A landscaping business is a type of gardening business. The term “landscaping” is not technically used in a scientific sense but instead refers to the physical adornments placed around structures and buildings, including gardens, pathways, trees, and more.
The lawn care business requires skill and an eye for beautiful designs but can also need landscaping business loans from a bank or lender along the way. Sometimes, these loans will be given out as secured loans. This means that the loan’s collateral is exchanged as a promise to pay back the loan in full.
Generally, landscaping companies have difficulty securing business loans from traditional lenders. Banks hesitate to offer loans to the lawn care business since their industry is seasonal—with slow periods in late fall and winter.
However, the emerging business financing models of today are eliminating this problem. Such models allow gardening companies to acquire short-term funding, empowering small business owners to take on new projects and leave behind the funding challenges associated with having only a few months of the busy season each year.
If you’re looking to expand or grow your landscaping business, you need more than just cash. Thankfully, several financing options are available to help you fund your landscaping business. It would be best to have healthy financials, an excellent credit score, and possibly collateral.
In this article, we’ll answer the following questions and more:
What Are Some Uses of Landscaping Business Loans?
To ensure your company’s success, you must be willing to endure the industry’s seasonal nature. Landscaping businesses need to be able to pay bills and have enough cash during the slow season. Landscaping business loans help you pay miscellaneous expenses during your slow season and take advantage of growth opportunities in your busiest season.
You can use your landscaping business loans for the following:
Employee payroll and training
You can achieve business expansion and growth by hiring dedicated staff for your landscaping team. Add employees to handle additional client traffic, sporadic jobs, and manage equipment.
Invest in your employees with training programs that help them work more efficiently to maximize their productivity.
Equipment maintenance and upgrading
Landscaping equipment financing allows you to replace broken or worn-out tools with newer models. You can also upgrade from older, less efficient mowers and other lawn tools to more recent models. The last thing you want to happen is your equipment breaking down on you during peak seasonal operation.
Pay for insurance costs
Professional landscaping businesses must buy worker’s compensation insurance, which covers injuries sustained on the job. The company should also purchase liability insurance to protect assets from damage lawsuits.
While a landscaping business loan is usually well worth the cost, it’s still an added expense that you need to pay interest on and plan for. Suppose you’re having cash flow issues after paying your initial costs to start your landscaping company. In that case, landscaping business loans can help pay for things like insurance and licensing necessary for running a legitimate lawn care operation.
What Are Some Reasons Landscaping Business Owners Get Small Business Loans?
Landscaping business loans can open up a world of possibilities for small landscaping companies or even larger ones. Lawn care business loans and lawn equipment financing are great ways to improve working capital and cash reserves during the off-season.
Whether you’re interested in expanding an existing operation or just getting by during the slow season, landscaping business loans can help you grow your business by purchasing equipment sooner.
There are multiple loan types to finance your business, including small business loans for lawn care, small business credit cards, personal loans, and lawn equipment financing. These loans can finance your operation’s needs, like hiring staff, marketing and promoting your business, and buying high-quality mowers.
What Are Requirements for a Landscaping Business Loan?
Landscaping businesses have to bid for projects, determine what resources to allocate, and do their best to keep costs down. They also have to consider whether they can afford to take on new jobs and whether they’ll be able to pay back any landscaping loans.
Banks aren’t always willing to lend money to landscaping businesses. However, short-term or alternative funding options are available at competitive rates that offer a more straightforward application process and lender approval. SBA Loans can also be an option if your business meets their requirements.
To find the right business financing program for your situation, consider asking yourself these questions:
What do you need to finance?
Your first decision is deciding what you want to finance.
You can use your loan for working capital, hire more employees, pay for current ones, or pay for marketing materials. Whether to pay bills, buy equipment, or expand the business requires very different loan amounts.
How healthy is your cash flow?
Examine your business’s cash flow. Look at how much money is coming in and when. Have you ever dealt with inconsistent cash flow? You might want to look at your business’s cash flow statement.
To maintain a cash flow, you can set up a merchant processing account for clients to pay for services by credit card or debit. You can also offer your clients discounts and incentives for early payment on their invoices.
How healthy is your business?
To apply for a business loan, you need to know how long you have been in business, your estimated annual gross sales, and any current debts, among other things.
To get approved during the business loan application process, you’ll need to ensure that you have no other open business loans that would impede your ability to pay the new one and that your credit score is good.
What Types of Landscaping Business Loans Are Available?
Banks are not always the best source for funding your landscaping business. Finding small business loans can be easier if you consider alternative loan sources:
Merchant Cash Advance
A merchant cash advance is an option that can work for newer businesses and those business owners with bad credit. The amount of funding you qualify for depends on your business’s anticipated credit card sales. If your company needs some short-term working capital, exploring merchant cash advance programs might be helpful.
Business Lines of Credit
Business lines of credit work much like credit cards. They provide quick, flexible access to needed working capital without dragging out the lending process. Many times, lines of credit also offer a small fee and lower interest rates than traditional loans.
One may use a business line of credit to cover inventory, equipment, payroll, debt, or cash flow. A business line of credit works similar to a revolving credit card. Small businesses will only be responsible for the interest on your balance if you withdraw money from the credit line. You can continue to draw more capital from the line as long as you are current on your payments.
Equipment Financing
Landscaping equipment financing provides you with the money needed to purchase equipment from various equipment lenders that offer favorable rates and terms. The amount you can borrow depends on the type of equipment purchased, its value, and whether your purchase was new or used.
Regardless of the source, landscaping equipment financing allows you to use the machinery purchased as collateral for your loan.
Landscaping equipment financing is structured similarly to conventional business loans but is tailored for the equipment funding needs of landscapers.
Invoice Financing & Factoring
Landscaping business owners who have outstanding invoices from their customers can sell their pending invoices to a third-party company for immediate cash.
If you are in the landscaping business and have outstanding invoices from your work, invoice financing could help you gain additional capital.
Short-Term Loans
Landscaping and lawn care businesses are seasonal. If you can’t repay a long-term loan, you may be able to take out a short-term loan.
Short-term loans are like traditional term loans, but they are repaid within a few weeks or months. You may have to pay more interest on short-term loans than on a long-term loan.
The advantage of short-term loans is that you can use the money to help your business during slow seasons, and you can pay back the loan during the busy season.
Conclusion
Business loans for the landscaping industry are generally easy to get when operating during peak season, especially if the company is on a stable track.
When your business involves landscaping and lawn care, United Capital Source can offer financing help with the Small Business Administration or other lending institutions. Most landscapers need that extra cushion to keep going through the slow season at one point or another. But that does not mean that just any loans for landscaping will work for your company.
The best small business loan options will depend on how your business works and why it needs financing. You have to consider what type of loan is best for your business and how much time you have to pay the money back.