Beauty finance: Helping deal with the cost of beauty

There are many styles of business. Both hairdressers and beauticians provide services to clients in their own home. Others provide specialised treatments in fixed locations, booking days in different locations, often hiring out a room in a hairdressing salon. Of course, there are also established beauty salons, some specialising in particular treatments, such as nail bars, and others offering a full range of beauty therapies in a clinic or spa environment.

It means that it is possible for someone with the necessary training and qualifications to grow a business from one based around a single travelling practitioner into a beauty centre employing several staff members and offering a complete range of treatments in a very short time.

At Rangewell, we work with businesses of all kinds across the UK. Our financial expertise could help you set up and run a beauty business, and grow it to the scale of your ambitions.

Your beauty business funding options

There are actually many types of funding that can be suitable for your beauty business. Getting the most appropriate finance solution will depend on your particular needs.

You may need to find the right type of funding option to allow you to:

• Acquire equipment
• Acquire premises
• Operating costs
• Finance growth
• Deal with tax

Equipment

The equipment you need will vary according to the type of treatments you want to offer and the cost of equipment will vary too.

Beauty equipment may include:

• Tanning beds
• Tanning Booths
• Laser hair removal sets
• Treatment chairs
• Hand tools
• Hairdryers
• Dermabrasion systems
• Electrotherapy kits
• Sterilisers
• Lamps
• Massage systems

You may also need a suitable vehicle if you are to offer a mobile service.

Asset Finance can help make the equipment you need more affordable, by spreading the costs over time.

With Asset Finance, the funds you need are secured on the asset itself. This means that if you were unable to make the repayments the lender would simply repossess the asset. It can also reduce the cost of the finance, as lower risk to the lender usually means lower interest rates to you.

There are several different types of Asset Finance:

Hire Purchase

Hire Purchase lets you hire the equipment until you have paid for it.  Agreements last between 12 and 72 months and require a 10-20% deposit plus fixed monthly instalments, after which the equipment becomes yours. HP may be most suitable for equipment you will use for the long term.

Equipment vendors may offer finance arrangements to support their sales, but arranging your own finance from a specialist lender can frequently be more cost-effective and mean substantially reduced costs.

Leasing

Leasing is much like a rental agreement. You pay a monthly charge to use the asset. With some arrangements maintenance, and repairs will be the owner’s responsibility. It means you can easily update your equipment, which may be an advantage if you need to increase your capacity or change your brewing process.

Contract Hire

Contract Hire may be the most appropriate form of asset finance for your business vehicles. With business contract hire, monthly charges are based on the purchase cost, less the value of the vehicle after the contract period, substantially reducing the costs of operating the vehicles you need.

Our Asset Finance team can help you lease or Hire Purchase almost any type or cost of asset, whether you want new or used, which can be more cost-effective. Find out more here.

New and used assets

Pre-owned equipment can mean major savings compared with new equipment. We can help you arrange various types of Asset Finance for used equipment, allowing you save twice - with both a reduced purchase price, and secondly by spreading the cost of finance.

Find out more about Asset Funding for secondhand equipment.

Funding your premises

Leasing a suitable space may be the most versatile solution. A shop is the usual choice, and if you can find one with rooms for treatments - or with enough space to be divided up - it could be ideal  Prices will vary across the country. Commercial property owners don’t like space being vacant, so you might be able to negotiate. You may need to borrow for the deposit on a long-term lease. An Unsecured Business Loan could help you raise the cash you need.

Alternatively, you might want to consider using a Commercial Mortgage to buy premises outright. Because they can spread the costs over 20 years or more, Commercial Mortgages may sometimes be arranged at monthly costs similar to a lease, and help you buy an appreciating asset for your business. You may need to provide a deposit of around 40%, and it is uneconomical to borrow less than £50,000, but there is no set upper limit.

Commercial Property Finance is arranged on an individual basis. Get our help finding the most competitive lender.

Remember, there will be fit-out costs. Reception, showers, changing rooms, and treatment rooms need to offer contemporary design and finishes. You will need air conditioning and you will need to give special attention to floors and other surfaces to ensure safety as well as aesthetics.

Contact us to find out more about funding for fitting out a beauty business.

Buying a beauty business

Buying an existing business with equipment and goodwill could offer immediate returns. Knowing the kinds of profit that can be generated will help convince potential lenders that your plans are viable. A Secured Loan could help you to borrow the large sums required for a buy-in our buy out of an existing business. You might also consider ‘jigsaw’ funding. This is a bespoke finance package, made up of a number of loan types, such as a Commercial Mortgage for the premises, with another loan to cover goodwill, and Asset Finance for the equipment.

Contact us to find out more about funding for buy-ins and buyouts.

Operating costs

Operating your business will also mean costs – for staff, utilities and other overheads, until you start to show a profit.  There are a number of ways to provide for these costs:

Borrowing

Business loans can be secured or unsecured.

Unsecured loans are like personal loans and don’t involve holding any assets as security. Loans are repaid in monthly or quarterly instalments over an agreed term, usually under 5 years. Modern lenders can provide fast unsecured lending, but you might need to provide a Personal Guarantee.

You usually can’t borrow more than one month’s turnover without security, and most unsecured loans providers will not lend more than £250,000. For a new business operation, many lenders might only be prepared to offer a secured loan.

Secured loans are ‘secured’ because the lender will require security in case you cannot pay the loan back. This could be your home or your business premises.

You can have longer to repay, and enjoy lower interest rates. This means that monthly repayments can be lower and easier to fit in with your cashflow, and it may be possible to borrow larger sums of money if you can provide suitable security.

Our lending teams can discuss your needs, and help you find the kind of loan to fit your business needs.

Revolving Credit Facilities

Revolving Credit Facilities bring a line of credit, with an agreed limit that you can call on when you need it. You only pay for the money you take out, so it can be a cost-effective way to raise funds if you need them.

Find out more about the ways to smooth your cashflow with Revolving Credit.

Merchant Cash Advance

Merchant Cash Advances may be ideal if you take payments through a card terminal or PDQ machine. The lender works with your payment company, and can advance you the equivalent of up to one month’s turnover. This advance is repaid automatically by deducting a proportion of the payment every time a customer uses a card to pay.

We can work with you to help you find the finance you need with Merchant Cash Advance.

Tax Loans

Tax is often an issue for most businesses. A large quarterly VAT or annual tax demand can cause problems for your cash flow, particularly when it falls at the same time as other costs.

Funding is available to let you spread the cost of your tax demands into affordable monthly payments. This will help ensure that your business does not have a cashflow problem, and it can free up cash for you to use elsewhere.

Benefits of a Tax Loan:

• Better control of cash flow
• Fixed monthly payments
• Quick and simple to arrange
• Avoids issues with HMRC and potential penalties

Working Capital Finance

The early days of any business are challenging. As its name suggests, Working Capital Finance is designed to boost the capital available to your business when it is not generating sufficient capital itself. It's often used to provide cash to pay staff and suppliers while business is slow during the early stages of a new business, or during a period of growth when your cashflow is already stretched. It is usually designed to be repaid in the short- to medium-term, once your beauty business is established and running.

Find out more about Working Capital Finance here.

Alternative Business Funding

Solutions like crowdfunding and Venture Capital have become more popular - but at Rangewell we believe that these alternative funding solutions can have major drawbacks.

Costs can be high, raising the funds you need can mean long delays or even fail altogether, and you could even run the risk of losing control of your business. Fortunately, a new generation of business lender has sprung up, which can adopt a more flexible approach to lending.

Find out more about alternative funding.

Funding for growth

Once your business has started to establish itself, you may need to consider growth. Taking on more people, offering new treatments and providing a bigger range of stock can all help boost your profits.

Additional investment will be required. This can be challenging if your business does not have a long trading history and profit record that lenders usually require. However, there are lenders who take a more enlightened view and may be able to can help.

Our finance experts can help solve your growth capital needs. 

How we help you capitalise your business

At Rangewell, our expertise works to bring you the financial solutions you need to capitalise your business, whether you want to fund capital expenses, working capital or growth - including the finance to start an aesthetic practice or beauty business. 

Whether you have a straightforward, small scale funding need, or require a complicated ‘Jigsaw’ funding plan made up of a combination of financial products to buy an existing business, we can work with you to find the answers and streamline your application.