For a new business, trying to get a bank loan can be a challenge especially without business credit history to back up your loan application.  If you need equipment financing is an issue, perhaps you may consider business equipment leasing?

Who Can Lease

Both new and established businesses are eligible to apply for equipment lease financing.  In fact, this financing technique has been employed by many small businesses and large corporations for a long time.

Why Lease Equipment

Rather than apply for a bank loan to buy the needed equipment, a new business owner can apply for a “lease” to avoid unnecessary delays with the business operations.   Instead of waiting for months to get their business loan approved, leasing equipment involves a quicker and uncomplicated procedure.

Add to this, equipment lease financing is generally cheaper since it does not require a down payment.  Many leasing companies offer flexible repayment terms (monthly, quarterly, bi-annual, annually) to complement the business’s needs.

Indeed, equipment lease financing is recommended for smaller businesses.  By leasing equipment, the business owner can use its working capital on other expenditures such as purchasing supplies, hiring workers, advertising your products and services, instead of spending the money on devices or special machines.

Preparing Paperwork

What kind of paperwork do you need to prepare?  The specific requirements may vary from one leasing firm to the next.  Still, most lessors generally require a written equipment lease proposal, the business’s recent financial statements, and tax returns.

Your lease proposal must clearly present the type of business you run, your reason for getting a lease, the specific machines or devices you need, and other important information about your company that will help convince your lessor to approve your application.

Check Your Credit

Some business equipment lease providers have strict standards and may call for good to excellent credit history.   Nonetheless, you can find lessors that offer leasing services even for customers with no credit history or with bad credit history.

In fact, even business owners who have a record of bankruptcy can get approved as long as the bankruptcy has been discharged.  If you have bad credit, it is a good idea to include a letter explaining the details about your bankruptcy or poor credit.

Tips For Sure Approval

For new business owners, do not test the waters by submitting multiple lease applications to different companies.  If a potential lessor sees too many inquiries in your report, it may raise doubt as to why other lessors are not willing to grant you a lease.

Keep in mind that not all leasing companies offer lease for new businesses.  Some lessors may require applicants to be at least 2 years in operations.  However, there are lease companies that do offer special lease arrangements for new businesses.

Find a leasing company that provides service to businesses in the market you belong.  For example, some lessors specialize in transportation while others may specialize in medical equipment, printing equipment, baking equipment, etc.  Check the prerequisites of a particular equipment lease provider so you can avoid unnecessary rejection.

If you are planning to get into a restaurant business, one of the biggest challenges you will face is equipment financing. Setting up your own restaurant demands a considerable amount of cash. For one, you need to invest on restaurant equipment such as stoves, grills, gas range, freezers, tables, seats, cash register, credit card machines, computer, etc. Think about how much start-up capital you will need to be able to buy all the necessary equipment and furnishing.

True, you can apply for a business loan, but if you spend all money on equipment alone, there may not be much left for other expenses such as marketing, supplies, and hiring workers. Is there an alternative financing option for aspiring restaurateurs? Rather than purchasing all the equipment and furnishing your business needs, why not consider business equipment lease financing?

Here are equipment lease tips that are especially for restaurant business owners:

Make Sure It’s NSF Approved. If you are going to lease kitchen gadgets like blenders, mixers, refrigerators, coolers, etc. you need to make sure that the devices all has the NSF (National Sanitation Foundation) Sticker. Commercial kitchen appliances that do not have an NSF Sticker may cost you levies and fines once your local health department conducts sanitary inspection.

Avoid Overbuying. With all the excitement of starting a business and having a restaurant place, some entrepreneurs may be overspending by taking on too many gadgets or equipment. Before ordering equipment to be leased, you should be realistic about your needs and consider your budget and the space.

Follow Local Regulations. You should know that there are specific regulations in furnishing a commercial kitchen. Before submitting your equipment lease application, make inquiries from your local health department, fire inspector, building inspector, and city zoning about the specific rules in furnishing a restaurant business.

Shop around. Compare and contrast proposals from various business equipment lease companies. Take a closer look at the prices along with the Terms and Conditions of the lessor.  Besides the equipment, will installation and maintenance services be provided as well? Can you expect a reliable customer service?

Analyze your lease contract. Never sign up for an equipment lease without examining all the stipulations in your contract. If you are not careful, you could get stuck with a bad lease and may not have much choice but to wait until your lease term ends.

Check your rating. Some commercial restaurant equipment leasing providers only grant approval to clients with good to excellent credit history. If you have bad credit, your application may get declined or you may be given high rates. Thus, it is advisable to check your credit report first before submitting your lease application. If you have good credit rating, you will be in much better position to negotiate for a lower interest rate or a more flexible repayment term.

Get free lease product distributors. Some product distributors do offer a free lease If you make them your official supplier. For instance, if you offer coffee and beverage in your restaurant, find a distributor that will provide you with a coffee maker or a freezer at no extra cost.

While traditional lenders and banks have been sticking to their strict underwriting guidelines there are several creative business financing options that may just help get you the funds you need.

Before getting into the details let me be the first to remind you that separating your personal credit from your business credit should be your primary goal. If you’re at the early stages of building your company’s credit file then you may have to use your personal credit to secure financing until your company becomes creditworthy.

Merchant Cash Advance

This option has many benefits if you are in need of short term business financing. In a nutshell you are borrowing against your company’s future credit card sales in order to receive cash immediately.

Best of all you can qualify with bad credit, no personal guarantee and no collateral.

Some of the requirements are: -At least 9 months in business -Process $5k or more in monthly credit card sales

Finally your repayment is based only on your credit card sales and it’s automatically debited so you don’t even have to worry about a payment schedule.

Social Lending

Lending networks like Lending Club and Prosper provide a way for you to obtain creative business loans that range from $1k to $25k for your business. Rather than go through all the red tape that traditional lenders impose on you these networks make the process so much easier. You simply post a loan listing and set the rate you want to pay and they do the rest.

The rate is fixed and so are your payments but best of all you don’t have to take the loan if you don’t like the rate.

Some of the requirements are:

*Personal credit score of 640+ for Prosper

*Personal credit score of 660+ for Lending Club

*Debt-to-income ratio of 25% (excluding mortgage)

Even though you’re securing the loan using your personal credit the interest rate you will pay is much less than the rate you will pay if you use your personal credit cards for funding.

Vendor Lines of Credit

Another alternative to creative business loans is obtaining vendor credit from your suppliers and other companies whose products and services you can use. This not only helps you conserve cash flow but also builds your business credit file too.

In most cases you can qualify with no personal credit check or guarantee which supports your overall business credit building strategy.

Equipment Leasing

When you need business financing for business equipment and you can’t secure finances through traditional sources like a bank than leasing is a viable alternative. You not only benefit from tax deductible lease payments but you also can get a buy-out option as well.

In addition you get a low fixed rate and a low down payment which is usually one or two lease payments upfront. Compared that to a traditional loan, where a bank requires up to 20% down of the total price of the equipment.

As you can see there are many creative business financing options that will provide your business the financing it needs short term or long term while you continue to work on establishing the creditworthiness of your company.

Did you know that you can negotiate the value of the vehicle, capitalized cost reduction, length of the lease, mileage allowance, and options and equipment when you’re leasing a car? Here’s all you need to know to get a great deal.

• The agreed-upon value of the vehicle — just as you can negotiate the price of a vehicle when you buy it, you can negotiate the value of a vehicle when you lease it. The agreed-upon value of the vehicle is the primary component of the gross capitalized cost, so the lower this value is, the lower your monthly payments will be.

Manufacturers, dealerships, or lessors sometimes offer special incentives that reduce the agreed-upon value of the vehicle. If this is the case, you may not have much room to negotiate.

In any price negotiation, it helps to know the lessor’s cost for the vehicle. You can get dealership cost information from a variety of sources on the Internet and from publications that are available in most public libraries. Use this information to help you negotiate the agreed-upon value of the vehicle.

• The capitalized cost reduction (cap cost reduction) — the capitalized cost reduction for a lease is like a down payment when buying a car. The more you pay to reduce the capitalized cost, the lower your monthly payments will be. The trade-off is that you have to pay the cap cost reduction up front, and you may not have the lump sum amount or you may want to do other things with that money.

Ask how different cap cost reductions will affect your monthly payment (for example, if you pay $1,000 instead of $3,500, what would your payments be?).
Most lessors restrict the maximum cap cost reduction you may make. For example, the maximum may be 20% of the MSRP or 20% of the value of the vehicle.

As an alternative to paying a higher cap cost reduction, you might be able to reduce your rent charge, and thereby lower your overall costs, by paying a higher security deposit

You may also want to consider a single-payment lease as an alternative to paying a higher cap cost reduction, if it will reduce your costs.
Some lease offers are based on a specific cap cost reduction. If you see a lease offer that is appealing to you, be sure to check the cap cost reduction and ask how the other lease terms and conditions would change if you paid more or less up front.

• The length of the lease — most leases are for 24, 36, 48 or 60 months (2-5 years). However, you may negotiate a lease for just about any period in between. Keep in mind, though, that not all lessors offer all terms — for example, some offer only 24- or 36-month leases. Occasionally you may find leases with terms shorter than 24 months or longer than 60 months.

Sometimes you may find a lease for a period other than a full year–for example, 39 months instead of 36 months. Such a lease may be a special offer. For example, the lessors may use the same residual value for the longer term as for the shorter term, thereby spreading the depreciation over more months and reducing the monthly payments.

When evaluating such a lease offer, be sure to compare all the other lease terms in addition to monthly payments. Unless the lessor is making a special offer, such as in the example, negotiating a different term for your lease will change the residual value in the monthly payment calculation.

The longer the term of your lease, the lower the residual value will be (because the vehicle will be older when you return it). Thus, you will pay more in total depreciation with a longer-term lease.

Try to match the length of the lease to your needs and preferences. Negotiating a longer lease will generally lead to a lower monthly payment, but deciding to end a longer lease early could be costly. In a closed-end lease, the opportunity to avoid unexpected depreciation and walk away occurs only when you have completed the full term of the lease and paid any amounts owed.

• The mileage allowance — common annual mileage allowances in leases are 10,000 miles, 12,000 miles, or 15,000 miles, but you can negotiate other limits. Many lessees drive more than 14,000 miles a year. Try to match the miles you will be driving to the mileage allowance in the lease.

If you think you’re going to be driving more miles than the lease allows, it’s generally better to negotiate a higher mileage allowance in the lease than to pay for the extra miles at the end of the lease. On the other hand, if you think you’ll be driving fewer miles, you may be able to save money by choosing a lower-mileage-allowance lease.

A lower-mileage lease will generally specify a higher residual value for the vehicle because a vehicle with fewer miles is worth more and is expected to have less wear. This higher residual value means that you will pay less for depreciation and your monthly payments will be lower. In contrast, a higher-mileage lease will generally specify a lower residual value for the vehicle because a vehicle with more miles on it when it’s turned in is worth less than a lower-mileage vehicle.

Therefore, you’ll pay more for depreciation during the term of the lease. And if you don’t use those miles, you may not be entitled to a refund at the end of the lease. If the lessor has a refund policy, it should be stated in the lease.

• Dealership- and consumer-installed options and equipment — just as when you buy a car, you can choose the features you want and add accessories to a leased vehicle. You may want to upgrade the sound system, install a leather interior, or add a sunroof to the vehicle.

It may be preferable to have those items included in the lease rather than added after you lease the vehicle because if the lessor considers the equipment, for resale purposes, as adding value, the equipment will increase the residual value of the vehicle.

You would then pay only for the expected amount of depreciation of the equipment during the lease, not for the full cost of the equipment. However, lessors often have different policies for determining what is value-adding equipment.

Adding an extra feature may increase your personal enjoyment of the vehicle, but it may not appreciably increase the vehicle’s resale value at lease-end. Ask the lessor about its policy on any equipment you want to add.

Also, in some cases, lessors will not let you add something if removing it may damage the vehicle or reduce its value. For example, you may not be able to add a trailer hitch, a luggage rack, or a mount for a car phone unless you are willing to leave it on the vehicle.

Be prepared to negotiate the price for any of these features and accessories. It helps to know the lessor’s costs for these accessories and features.

You can get dealership cost information from a variety of sources on the Internet and from publications that are available in most public libraries. Use this information to help you negotiate.

You may also be asked if you want to sign up for a service or maintenance contract or for rust-proofing, fabric protection, undercoating, and so forth. These services are optional, and their prices can be negotiated.

You’ll need excellent negotiating skills when you lease a car. By using the above tips, you’ll soon be leasing your vehicle at very favorable terms.

You would much rather forget about your previous hunting trips than remember them, simply because too much time has been spent in looking for suitable hunting locations, traveling, getting hunting licenses and equipment, and so on! You have planned something different for this year. You are going in for hunting leases and get everything over and done with!

This definitely makes things a little bit easier since you have to deal only with the owner of the land that he is leasing out. The catch is that there is an official document that requires your signature before you are allowed to do anything. Also, everything on that paper is legal and binding to both parties. So, for your benefit and for the benefit of all sports hunters, here are a few things to be kept in mind while signing hunting leases–

(1) Whatever be the length of the document and however much of a hurry you are in, READ the terms of the agreement thoroughly before signing it. This applies to both, individual hunters as well as a hunting party. The trouble starts when people just skim through what is written and sign blindly–no one is going to believe in your innocence later on should unforeseen difficulties crop up.

(2) Why are private landowners going in for hunting leases? They are concerned about keeping themselves and their properties safe. This is a method to avoid personal risk.

(3) Too often, landowners who leased out their private lands for hunting got into trouble with the law as well as incurred losses to their property, since protection agreements were missing. They have become wiser today! Your signature on the document indicates that you alone are responsible for any damage to property. Also, should any member of a hunting party get killed or injured during the event, the landowner cannot be held responsible and dragged into a lawsuit.

(4) So if there is anything about the agreement that you find difficult to comprehend, ask for clarifications and affix your signature only after you have clearly understood everything.

(5) Some hunting leases are very succinct while others are more detailed. Never mind how much time it takes; if you have questions, get the answers before signing the document.

(6) To be fair, hunting leases are generally quite reasonable and the terms set down are not so difficult to accept. This legal contract is actually meant to avoid future litigations. Where a group of hunters is concerned, all the members are required to put their individual signatures.

(7) Additionally, a private landowner has the freedom to put in anything into his agreement, provided it is reasonable. So hunting leases can be very flexible. And terms and conditions differ from year to year–what was absent previously may be present today, and vice versa.

(8) To conclude, hunting leases are legal and binding agreements settled upon by both, private landowner and hunter/hunters. Ensure that you do nothing that will give the landowner a chance to sue you in court!