Finance for your Ground Care business

The demand for ground care is no longer confined to sports grounds and golf courses. Commercial developments now make a feature of green space - meaning that demand for landscaping and skilled maintenance of lawns and planting is on the increase.

With a grounds care business you might find yourself working with residential clients, commercial clients, or both - and on grounds that can range from golf courses and football pitches to cemeteries, formal gardens and both showpiece and utility spaces for businesses. The list of potential clients is growing - and outsourcing the care of green space is now preferred to employing full-time staff.

Obviously, you will need a love of the outdoors and practical knowledge of gardening - although formal qualifications may also be useful. But as with most kinds of business, you will also need funding.

Funding to set up a ground care business

Before you begin trading, you’ll need to register with HMRC for tax, National Insurance and probably VAT. You will also need to decide on the legal structure for your business. If you are starting from scratch, working as a sole trader may be the simplest route. However, there may be a wider choice of funding opportunities with a limited company, or if you’re in a partnership, an LLP.

The cost of registration is minimal, but you may need to arrange insurance before you start work. You’ll want public liability insurance, which can cover you against claims arising from injury or damage from a member of the public and if you employ people in your landscaping business, employers’ liability insurance is a legal requirement.

You will also need to market your business. Leaflets and business cards will be essential, and you may need a basic website - virtually every business needs an online presence, and many potential clients will want to make enquiries by email.

You should look at the costs involved and if you do not already have equipment and a vehicle, the costs of the tools you will need. Understanding the expenses of setting up and running your ground care operation, and putting them into a formal business plan is an essential first step of setting up a successful business.

You may need to arrange funding to cover these costs. Funding for a start-up business can be hard to arrange, as you have no trading history - but solutions do exist, and you can see how we can help you fund your start-up business here.

Funding to equip your ground care business

You will certainly need a van or pick-up and perhaps a trailer, but the equipment you will need will depend on the scale of the grounds you are caring for. For small sites, a small power mower may be adequate, but the larger the area you take on, the larger your equipment needs will be. Lawn care will be your priority, and you will need to decide whether you need a ride-on mower, or a small tractor with attachments for mowing, scarification, leaf collection and rolling.

Whatever the scale of your equipment needs, Asset Finance can usually provide the most cost-effective way to answer them. Hire purchase can let you spread the cost of buying equipment over up to five years, while leasing can work like renting - you simply make a monthly payment for the use of the equipment, which should be covered by the work the equipment does for you.

Buying secondhand equipment can mean some major savings, especially when you are setting up your ground care business. We can help you find Asset Finance solutions for used equipment.

Funding to support the cashflow of your ground care business

Generally, most of your ground care work will be conducted during the spring, summer and autumn - which can leave you with a cash flow problem in winter, even if you have an ongoing contract for maintenance. If you cannot find seasonal work such as tree pruning, you may find that your income is insufficient to deal with ongoing bills.

One solution to this may be Working Capital Finance - essentially a short-term loan which can help keep you afloat during the closed season, and which can be repaid as the work starts to come in again.

However, the challenges to your cashflow may not only be seasonal. Large corporate clients may be slow payers and it may take months for some to settle your bills.

This issue can often be solved with Invoice Finance - which is technically an advance secured on your invoices and can provide you with payment as soon as you issue an invoice, allowing your cashflow to keep pace with the work you do.

Growing your ground care business

Once your business is established, you may be ready to start growing it, taking on staff - perhaps on a seasonal basis - to allow you to take on more contracts.

The key to this growth will, of course, be to secure more work, which will require marketing and promotion.

At the very least, you should have a signboard with your name and contact details to display on-site when you are working. You will also need to invest in your web presence and may need to expand your basic website to showcase your work, and promote it with emails, and possibly social marketing. Use both online and offline publicity to ensure that potential customers in your area know your business - and can recall its name when they think about having work done.

Traditional marketing in the local press and with leaflets that you can mail to prospective clients can all be useful.  A local web and marketing agency may be able to provide the assets you need. There are several types of Unsecured Loans available which will allow you to cover their costs.

Helping your ground care business deal with tax

As your ground care business becomes more successful, you will face larger quarterly VAT and annual tax demands. These can cause problems with cash flow, especially during the slow season. They are major expenses that need to be funded without delay.

Tax Loans help you to spread the cost of your tax demands into affordable regular monthly payments. They can also help you avoid issues with HMRC, with the potential penalties it can cause.

Why you need Rangewell to set up finance for your ground care business

Business finance can be highly competitive, and finding the right kind of funding and the right lender are both essential. At Rangewell, we have built contacts across the entire business funding market, and can work with you to find the solution you need. Our expertise supports your business - by helping you get the finance you need for less.