What counts as equipment for financing?

Titled vehicles — trucks, trailers, vans, plant. Best of all, because title, mileage and market value are all verifiable in minutes.

Serial-numbered machinery: excavators, CNC and press equipment, commercial kitchen lines, dental chairs, imaging equipment, gym racks, salon and laser equipment.

Anything with an established used market. A funder is pricing the possibility of recovering and selling the asset, so the depth of that market moves the terms.

Leasehold improvements. A fit-out is attached to premises you do not own and cannot be repossessed, so it is a working-capital or term-loan question.

Software and licences, generally. There is no resale market and often no transferable licence, though hardware bundled with it can sometimes be included.

Consumables and stock. They are consumed rather than owned over years, which is a working-capital use.

Assets already pledged elsewhere. If another lender holds a lien on it, it is not available as security.

Equipment financing is the cheapest money most small businesses can get, because the asset genuinely secures the debt and the term matches its life.

Buying a machine out of a nine-month advance is the most expensive way to acquire it — you pay unsecured pricing for something that could have secured its own loan over five years.

Where a purchase is part equipment and part fit-out, split it. Finance the equipment as equipment and fund the rest separately, rather than putting the whole thing on the more expensive product.