Why do banks turn down manufacturers for loans?

The cash conversion cycle is brutal and entirely normal: buy materials, run the job, invoice, then wait sixty days. A bank looking at the ratios sees cash locked in work in progress.

A full order book does not fix it. Signed orders are not revenue on a bank's model, so the strongest evidence you have counts for the least.

Machinery is already financed in most shops, so it is encumbered and unavailable as security for anything new.

Deposits show that customers pay, which is the question. A sixty-day cycle repeated reliably across six months is evidence, not a warning.

Machinery gets its own financing at its own rate, because a press or a CNC has a resale market an underwriter can price. Funding equipment out of working capital is the expensive way to buy it.

Purchase orders and contracts are worth submitting. They are not underwritten directly, but they explain a working-capital request in a way statements alone cannot.

Working capital underwritten on deposits and the order book funds materials and labour for orders already won, so cash tied up in work in progress stops being the reason for a no.

Machinery belongs on equipment financing, which prices close to a bank because the machine secures it. Putting a machine on working capital is the expensive mistake to avoid.

Six months of business bank statements.

Your order book or contracts in hand.

For equipment, the specification, the vendor quote and whether existing machines are financed.