Burlington, VT Landscaping Equipment Financing for Crew Trucks and Irrigation Parts

A crew truck earns its keep through what is bolted to it: a dump body, a ladder or tool rack, a liftgate, and the enclosed or open trailer it pulls. When the truck and the upfit come from one dealer, a single quote can carry both into equipment financing; when the upfitter is a separate shop, its invoice can be named alongside the truck.

A trailer can be financed with the truck or apart from it. Irrigation parts, pipe and controllers bought for client jobs are stock rather than equipment, and they belong with working capital.

Irrigation work has its own tools as well: a trencher or vibratory plow for running lines, a pipe puller and a backflow test kit. These are smaller purchases than a truck, and listing them on the same request as the truck upfit saves a second round of paperwork. The point of the split is the same on every line: equipment that lasts for years goes on a schedule measured in years, and parts that leave with the next job do not.

A skid steer or compact track loader is the machine that lets a small crew take on grading, hardscape and material moving. The buckets, augers, grapples and forks that mount on it can be listed on the dealer quote with the machine, so one request covers the whole setup.

A used machine can be part of the request too. A loader bought at auction or from another contractor can be named with the bill of sale, the hour meter reading and the serial number; a funding partner looks at the hours and age when it sets the term.

A single zero-turn mower is a straightforward equipment request. A fleet order is where the numbers need checking: replacing several mowers at once, with old units traded in, changes the amount the business needs to fund.

Illustration only, invented figures. In this example a company orders 3 zero-turn mowers at $13,900 each and trades in 2 older mowers at $2,600 apiece, so the amount it asks to finance in this example is $36,500. The dealer's quote shows both the price and the trade-in credit.

Deck width, engine hours on the trade-ins and the delivery date all belong on the quote. A company that staggers a fleet replacement, one or two mowers at a time, can also ask a partner whether a credit line or a series of small equipment requests suits its pattern of purchases.

A sod cutter, an aerator, a power rake and a dethatcher are small machines that can go together on one equipment quote. Fuel bills and repairs are a different kind of cost: they recur every week the crews are out, and a business line of credit fits them better than a fixed loan, drawn when the bills arrive and paid down as client invoices are settled.

Repair invoices for a blown hydraulic line or a mower deck that needs rebuilding arrive without warning. A line already in place lets a company pay the shop and keep the crew working.

Most landscaping companies here run small crews. Counted by crew size, the 2023 County Business Patterns figures for landscaping services (NAICS 561730) put 64 of the county's 83 employer establishments under five employees, 77.1% of the trade. With crews that size, the owner's own records carry much of a request: bank statements, client contracts, the equipment list and the dealer quote.

Inside ZIP Code 05401 the count is small: 3 landscaping services establishments in the 2023 ZIP Code Business Patterns file. For the whole administrative, support and waste management sector (NAICS 56) that landscaping belongs to, the county had 306 employer establishments that year. Nonemployer Statistics, a separate count with a broader code (NAICS 56173), shows 230 landscaping businesses with no paid employees in the county for 2024.

• Bank statements for recent months, showing client payments coming in and fuel and repair bills going out
• Client contracts or maintenance agreements with their start dates and monthly amounts
• An equipment list with each mower, loader, truck and trailer, its age and any balance still owed
• The dealer quote, with any trade-in credit shown on its own line

The Burlington, VT page has more county figures, and builders and grounds crews share a group on the industries page.