Why March is the hardest month to be funded and the one you need it
A landscaping company's spring starts before its customers' do. Bulk mulch, soil and plant stock are bought in March; the crew is hired and trained before the first cut; installation jobs need $5,000 to $15,000 of materials each before the client pays. The invoices for all of that go out in April and are paid in May.
And the statements on the desk in March are December, January and February — for most companies without a snow operation, the thinnest quarter of the year. A funder reading only those three months is reading a business that looks half its size.
Send the whole year
Twelve months of statements, with last April through October front and center. A funder that sees $50,000 months last summer and $18,000 months this winter is reading a seasonal business, and will size the offer to the season it is about to enter — especially if the application says, in a sentence, that the money is for spring materials and the April invoices repay it.
Signed maintenance contracts for the coming season are the other document worth sending. Forty accounts at a known monthly rate is a revenue schedule, and it explains the ask better than any cover note.
Amounts run half to one and a half times a month's deposits, and which month the funder treats as typical is what the full-year statements decide. Borrow the materials and the first two payrolls; the April invoices do the rest.
What to fund with what
Materials, the first hires, fuel, the insurance renewal that always lands in spring: working capital, one to three business days, weekly payments that line up with when your maintenance accounts pay.
A new mower, a trailer, a skid steer for the install crew: equipment financing, through the dealer or an equipment lender, two to five years, cheaper by a wide margin. It takes two to five days from a quote and it should not be on the same application as the mulch.
Next year, do this in August
A business line of credit applied for in August, against July's statements, is approved on the best numbers you will have all year. Drawn in March, repaid in May, costing nothing from June to February. It is harder to qualify for than an advance and takes weeks to set up, which is why it is a summer task. Every landscaper who has one describes spring as a different season.