Your mower or truck died mid-season with forty accounts waiting. What replaces it this week?

A landscaping company in June with forty maintenance accounts has a route that has to run. A zero-turn that throws a rod, or a truck that will not pull the trailer, is not a repair bill first — it is a week of accounts not cut, and the crew paid anyway. On the contractor forums that is the recurring theme: the cash problem is never the equipment, it is the payroll and the missed week around it.

So two separate problems, two separate products, and the order matters.

A commercial mower at a dealer generally comes with in-house financing on a two- to five-year term, and the dealer wants the sale more than the bank wants your file. A truck goes to an equipment lender or the dealer's finance desk the same way. Ten to twenty percent down is normal for a company under two years old or an owner with a rough score.

This is the cheap money in the picture, because the machine secures it. Take it for the machine and nothing else. A $14,000 mower funded on a six-month advance because the advance was faster is a $3,000 mistake.

Used commercial equipment finances too, from a dealer more easily than from a Facebook listing. Lenders want a serial number and a seller they can pay directly.

Rental to keep the route running, the crew's wages for the gap, and the accounts you credited for a missed cut — none of that is an asset, and it is funded with a short-term working capital loan or a cash advance. Decision in about a day, money in one to three business days.

Amounts follow your deposits: half to one and a half times a month's. A crew doing $40,000 a month in June sees offers from about $20,000. You will not need that much for a week's gap; borrow what the gap is.

The timing point is the one landscapers miss. A funder reads the last three to six months. In June those months are the strongest you will have all year. The same application in December, after a slow November, gets a smaller offer at a worse price for exactly the same company. If you know a piece of equipment is on its last season, act while the statements are good.

A landscaping business that survives on maintenance contracts has a predictable dip every year, and the dip is when things that were limping finally quit. A business line of credit, set up in summer against summer deposits, is the product built for that — drawn in February, repaid in May, costing nothing in between.

It is harder to qualify for than an advance and takes longer to set up. That is why it is a July project, not a January one.