Plant & machinery · CNC · Presses · Packaging lines · Compressors · Racking
Finance for the plant that actually makes the product.
A machining centre, a press brake, a packaging line, a compressor set, a full racking fit-out — this is the equipment your capacity is built on, and it does not finance like a truck. The useful conversation is about what you are buying, what it costs to get it running, and whether the work is there to pay for it.
Start here
One machine and a whole line are two different transactions.
Buying a single machine is a contained thing. One supplier, one invoice, one serial number, one delivery date — and asset finance is built for exactly that shape: a lender funds identifiable goods and registers its security over them.
A production line or a full workshop fit-out is a project wearing the same coat. Several suppliers, deliveries landing weeks apart, an electrician, a rigger, possibly a builder, and a commissioning period during which nothing you own is making anything. Treating that as a single purchase tends to create problems that surface as cash-flow pain a month later.
| A single machine | A line or a fit-out | |
|---|---|---|
| What is funded | One asset, one supplier, one invoice. Serial number, model and specification all on the page. | Several assets plus work that is not an asset at all — wiring, footings, steel, software configuration. |
| Timing | Order, deliver, settle. Weeks, or months if it is built to order. | Often many months from deposit to first saleable output, with payments falling due throughout. |
| Usual structure | A single facility settled once the machine is delivered and yours. | Commonly staged — separate facilities or drawdowns as each element arrives and is signed off. |
| Where it goes wrong | Landed cost exceeds the quote. | Treated as one lump, so repayments start on capital still in a crate. |
Staging is not bureaucracy. Security attaches to goods that exist and belong to you, so a lender settles as each piece lands rather than against a plan. It also keeps you from paying to hold capital that has not started earning, and it builds in a checkpoint: if the first cell underperforms, you have not already committed to the whole floor.
Plant suppliers, particularly overseas ones, want money at order and the balance before the machine ships. Asset finance generally settles once the goods exist, are in the country and are yours. That gap is a working-capital question, not an equipment-finance one, and it is far easier to solve before a purchase order is signed. Raise it early.
The awkward truth
A prime mover has a market. A press with your tooling on it may not.
Secured lending prices risk partly on what the asset would fetch if it ever had to be sold. Common assets make that easy: trucks, excavators and forklifts have deep second-hand markets with buyers in every state.
Specialised plant is a harder read, for reasons that are entirely practical:
- The buyer pool is small. The people who want a specific machine are in your industry, and when your industry is quiet they are all quiet at once.
- Configuration narrows it further. A machine built around one product or one customer's specification suits fewer buyers than a standard unit.
- Removal costs real money. Something bolted to a slab and wired into switchboards has to be de-commissioned, rigged out and transported, and all of that comes off whatever it sells for.
- Support matters more than age. A machine whose controls are no longer supported and whose spares are hard to source is worth a fraction of an identical unit a service agent still looks after.
So the assessment leans harder on the business and less on the asset: trading history, cash flow, the directors' credit conduct, what you are contributing. A deposit or trade-in carries more weight here than on a common asset, terms are often matched more tightly to the equipment's realistic working life, and additional security or a personal guarantee from the directors may come into it. The field of lenders willing to look is narrower too — which is exactly when getting the file in front of the right ones first time is worth something.
The real number
The invoice price is not the landed cost.
The most common surprise in these deals is the distance between the machine price and the money required to have that machine producing parts. Freight, customs, craneage and rigging, clearing the bay, power upgrades, compressed air, extraction, guarding, software, commissioning and training all sit between the two numbers.
Some of that can usually be financed with the machine and some cannot. The dividing line is roughly this: asset finance funds identifiable goods that become the lender's security, and work that improves your building is not goods.
| Cost | Usually inside the financed amount? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| The machine itself | Yes | The core of the security. Serial number, model and specification all get recorded. |
| Freight and delivery | Often | Easiest where it sits on the supplier's invoice rather than a separate forwarder bill. |
| Import duties and port charges | Sometimes | Depends how the purchase is documented and who is named as importer. |
| Rigging, craneage and positioning | Sometimes | Simpler when the supplier quotes a delivered-and-installed price. |
| Installation and commissioning | Often | Where it is the supplier's scope, it commonly travels with the machine. |
| Tooling, fixtures and spares | Often | List them at the start. Adding items after a facility is written is more work. |
| Slab work, footings, structural steel | Rarely | These improve the building, not the goods. Usually funded separately. |
| Switchboard and three-phase upgrades | Rarely | Same reason. Quote it early — often the longest lead item in the project. |
| Training and software | Varies | Sometimes in the supply contract, sometimes a subscription that cannot be capitalised. |
Applying for the machine price, then finding you needed the machine plus rigging plus a switchboard, means a second application and often a worse outcome than doing it once. Ring the electrician and the rigger before you ring us — two quotes and a rough site plan change the quality of the advice enormously.
Provenance
New, used, and used from overseas.
Plenty of excellent plant is bought second-hand, and a well-kept machine from a closing factory can be the best value on the floor. The risk is not that it is used. The risk is that nobody can tell you where it has been.
On any used machine, domestic or imported, the same things are worth establishing before money moves:
- Who owned it and what it did. A machine that ran one light shift is a different asset to an identical one worked continuously, and the build year will not tell you which.
- Service records. Documented servicing, spindle or ram history, evidence of who maintained it. Their absence is not fatal, but it moves the conversation.
- Hours, cycles or throughput. Whatever the meaningful measure of work is for that equipment.
- Whether it is still supported. Controls and drives reach end-of-life. If spares and technicians are scarce, that hits both your production risk and the asset's value.
- Clean title. Domestically, a PPSR check and confirmation nothing is owing. On an import, proper commercial invoices, shipping documents and a verifiable seller.
- Australian compliance. Guarding, emergency stops, electrical work and supply voltage all have to meet Australian requirements and the relevant standards. Retrofitting an import so it can lawfully run here is a real cost, and it is usually discovered after the machine has landed.
New machinery costs more and answers most of that at once: warranty, an accountable supplier, current controls, available parts, and a value everyone finds easier to read. Neither choice is automatically right. What we would push back on is buying a large used machine sight-unseen from a seller you cannot verify — an inspection is cheap next to the alternative.
Structure
Chattel mortgage, finance lease or rental.
Three different commercial arrangements. The difference is mostly about who owns the equipment and what happens at the end.
| Structure | Who holds title | How it behaves | Where it can suit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chattel mortgage | You, from the outset | Yours from day one, with the lender registering a security interest. A residual can often be built in to shape the repayment. | Equipment you will keep and run for its working life. |
| Finance lease | The financier, for the term | Full use of the machine while the financier holds title. The contract sets the residual and your end-of-term options. | Use of the asset without holding title during the term. |
| Rental or operating hire | The provider throughout | Paying for use over a defined period rather than buying. At the end you return, extend or negotiate. | Short useful life, technology that dates quickly, or uncertain requirements. |
GST, depreciation and tax treatment differ between these structures, and on equipment of this size the difference is worth real money. That is your accountant's call, not ours and not the lender's. Ask them before you settle on a structure, ideally before the purchase order is signed, and we will work with whatever they recommend.
One thing to know about business lending
Credit provided predominantly for business purposes generally sits outside the National Credit Code, Schedule 1 to the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009. Much of what Australians associate with borrowing lives there: responsible lending obligations, prescribed disclosure, the statutory hardship process. Outside it, your rights come mainly from the contract you sign — a reason to read it properly and have your accountant or solicitor read it with you. Not a reason to avoid business finance, but better heard from us now than discovered later.
How it works
Three steps.
Tell us the equipment and the project
The quote or spec sheet, whether it is one machine or a staged build, what the install involves, and what it will be making. Two minutes online or a phone call.
We check policy before lodging
Specialised plant is not funded by everyone. We work out who will genuinely consider this asset and structure before anything is submitted, rather than testing it on your credit file.
We run it through to settlement
Documents, approval, invoices, serial numbers, and settlement timed to when the equipment arrives. One broker who knows the deal and answers the phone.
The honest bit
Buy against capacity you have, not capacity you hope for.
We are a brokerage and we would rather write the deal than not. We would also rather not write one that comes apart in eighteen months, so here is what we say most often: the machine does not create the demand.
A repayment is fixed and starts early. A forecast is neither. Be unsentimental about which of these you have:
- Contracted work. Signed agreements, standing purchase orders, a supply arrangement with volumes in it. The strongest case there is, and the easiest to put to a lender.
- A reliable forecast. Years of consistent seasonal demand, an order book you have historically filled, a customer whose volumes have been steady. Reasonable, but stress-test it.
- An expectation. A verbal indication, a tender you expect to win, a market you believe is about to move. This is where the trouble usually starts.
Two more questions worth sitting with. Is the machine actually your constraint? Plenty of shops buy a faster one and find the bottleneck was scheduling, labour or the operation downstream, in which case the new equipment just builds work-in-progress faster. And can you crew it? A machine nobody is trained to run is an expensive shelf.
Then budget for the dead period. Between deposit and first saleable output there can be months of cost and no revenue, and the repayment schedule does not care that commissioning ran late.
Common questions
Industrial equipment finance, answered.
Can we finance a whole production line, not just one machine?
Yes, and it is usually put together in stages rather than as one lump. Security attaches to goods that exist and are yours, so funding tends to follow the equipment as each element is delivered and signed off. That also keeps you from paying to hold capital that is still in transit, and gives you a checkpoint between stages. The practical requirement is a clear schedule of what is being bought, from whom, and roughly when each piece lands.
Can freight, rigging, installation and commissioning be included in the amount financed?
Often, particularly where those costs sit on the supplier's invoice as part of a delivered-and-installed price. Costs that improve the building rather than the equipment — slab work, footings, steel, switchboard upgrades — usually sit outside the equipment facility. The dividing line is whether the money buys identifiable goods that become the security. Send us the full quote breakdown and we will tell you what can travel with the machine.
Why is a specialised machine harder to finance than a truck?
Because a secured lender has to form a view on what the asset would fetch if it ever had to be sold, and specialised plant is a harder read. The buyer pool is smaller and moves with the same industry cycle you do, bespoke configuration narrows it further, and de-installing and transporting something bolted into a building costs money that comes off the price. None of that stops these deals happening. It does mean the assessment leans more on your trading history and cash flow, and that fewer lenders will look at it.
We are importing a used machine from overseas. Is that financeable?
Commonly, yes, but the documentation bar is higher. A lender needs to be satisfied the machine exists, that title is clean and that the seller is who they claim to be: commercial invoices, shipping documents, photographs, serial numbers, often an independent inspection. Two things catch people out. Payment timing, since overseas suppliers usually want money before shipment while asset finance settles once the goods are here and yours. And Australian compliance, since guarding, electrical work and supply voltage may need retrofitting before the machine can lawfully run.
Chattel mortgage, finance lease or rental — which should we choose?
Structurally the difference is ownership. Under a chattel mortgage the equipment is yours from the outset and the lender registers a security interest over it. Under a finance lease the financier holds title for the term while you have full use of the machine. Rental or operating hire is not ownership at all — you pay for use over a period. Which suits you depends on how long you will keep the equipment and how your business is set up. The tax, GST and depreciation consequences also differ, and that part is genuinely your accountant's call: we are credit brokers, not tax advisers.
Can racking, mezzanines and warehouse fit-out be financed the same way?
Partly. Free-standing racking, shelving and materials-handling equipment are identifiable goods and are commonly financed as equipment. Structures that become part of the building — a mezzanine tied into the slab, fire services, a sprinkler upgrade — are usually treated as premises works rather than plant, and funded differently. On a fit-out it is worth separating the two lists early, because it changes how the project is funded.
Do we need a deposit?
Not always, and there is no single rule across the market. What is fair to say is that a deposit or trade-in matters more on specialised plant than on a common asset, because it reduces the lender's exposure on something with a narrower resale market. If you can contribute meaningfully, it widens your options. Remember too that the supplier's own deposit at order is a different thing, needed well before any facility settles.
Does business equipment finance carry the same protections as a consumer loan?
Usually not, and it is better to hear that now. Credit provided predominantly for business purposes generally falls outside the National Credit Code, where responsible lending obligations, prescribed disclosure and the statutory hardship provisions live. Your rights come primarily from the contract itself, so it is worth reading properly and worth having your accountant or solicitor read with you — particularly the default, early termination and end-of-term clauses.
Let's talk
Send us the quote. We will tell you how it can be put together.
No cost, no obligation, and no credit enquiry while we work it out. If the deal stacks up we will find the lenders who fund this kind of plant. If the business case is thin, we will say so instead.
The Finance Team is a trading name of Online Showroom Pty Ltd, a credit broker holding Australian Credit Licence 551493. We arrange finance through a panel of lenders; we are not a lender. Anything on this page is general information, and any figures discussed are estimates only — not an offer of credit. Every application is subject to lender assessment, criteria and terms. Tax, GST and accounting treatment are matters for your accountant.
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