A landscaping company in Steamboat Springs, CO can finance trucks, trailers, mowers and compact loaders with equipment financing, where the machine secures the debt, and carry crew payroll between invoices with working capital or a line of credit. Start with a call to Mapleshore Financial; any offer, and its terms, comes from a funding partner.
Trucks, trailers, mowers and loaders fit equipment financing; small tools and crew wages between invoices fit a line of credit or working capital. Compare a dealer program and an outside offer on total cost. Partners set their own terms.
Trucks, trailers and mowers
A landscaping crew is only as mobile as its truck and trailer. A three-quarter-ton or one-ton pickup, a dump-bed truck for soil and mulch, an open or enclosed trailer, and the mowers that ride on it, whether zero-turn, stand-on or walk-behind, are the big-ticket items. Each has a serial number, a resale value and years of use ahead, which is what equipment financing is built around.
Hand-held tools are a different case. Trimmers, blowers, edgers and hedge shears cost little each and wear out within a few years, so a long term on them makes little sense; a line of credit or cash fits them better.
Illustration only, invented figures: a company adds a stand-on mower and an enclosed trailer for $23,400, financed over 36 months at an annual rate of 11.25%. Thirty-six payments of $768.86 come to $27,678.96, which means $4,278.96 of interest over three years.
The landscaping page sets each machine beside the product it matches, and the equipment financing page explains loans and leases.
Compact loaders for hardscape work
Hardscape work moves heavy material: stone, block, gravel and soil, sometimes across a finished lawn. A compact track loader or a stand-on mini loader does that work with less ground damage than a wheeled machine, and its attachments decide what else it can do: a bucket, pallet forks, an auger, a trencher, a power rake or a grapple. Listing the attachments on the same quote lets the whole package be financed together.
Illustration only, invented figures: a $52,000 loader with four attachments, at an annual rate of 9.75%, priced two ways. The 48-month version asks $1,312.62 a month and $63,005.76 altogether. Stretch it to 60 months and each bill falls to $1,098.46, while the sum of the bills rises to $65,907.60. The 48-month payment is $214.16 more each month; the 60-month term costs $2,901.84 more in all.
Which one fits depends on how many years of work the loader has ahead and how much payment the monthly invoices can carry. A partner sets the term it will offer against the age and value of the machine.
Dealer financing or an equipment lender?
A dealer selling a new mower or loader may offer financing at the counter, through the maker’s own finance program or a bank it works with. An equipment lender, reached here through a funding partner, makes a separate offer that can cover a used machine, a mix of brands, or a trailer bought from a different seller. Neither is the better choice by default; the total cost is what to compare.
Illustration only, invented figures: a dealer program offers 3.9% for 36 months on a $30,000 machine, while paying cash at the same dealer would bring the price down to $28,000, financed elsewhere at 9.5%. The program payment is $884.39, $31,838.04 over the term; the outside offer is $896.92, $32,289.12 in all. Here the outside offer costs $451.08 more, so the program wins, but a smaller cash discount or a higher program rate can flip the result.
- Get both prices from the dealer on paper: paying cash, and using its program
- Compare the total of all payments, plus any fees, on each offer
- Check whether the dealer program covers attachments and the trailer
- Read what each offer says about early payoff
Crew payroll between invoices
Wages leave every two weeks, while a client invoice can wait 30, 45 or 60 days. The number of paydays inside that wait depends on where the first one falls, so a crew plans for both counts.
| Wait for payment | Biweekly paydays inside it | Wages to carry |
|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 2 or 3 | $10,800 or $16,200 |
| 45 days | 3 or 4 | $16,200 or $21,600 |
| 60 days | 4 or 5 | $21,600 or $27,000 |
A gap that comes back with every billing cycle suits a line of credit, drawn on payday and paid down when the client pays. A one-time gap, such as the first month of a new maintenance contract, fits working capital with a set payback schedule.
County Business Patterns puts the 2023 annual payroll of landscaping services (NAICS 561730) in Routt County, CO at $8.8 million, spread across 35 establishments with employees. That is a total for all of them together, not a payroll for any one company.
By Mapleshore Financial · Updated
