Do you offer finance?

[island fling]

Some relevant discussion here:

offering finance to customers (small business)

but talk to your accountant before doing anything because there are a lot a regulations and pitfalls. One of which is that you'll attract customers who can't afford what you're selling and hence are a high default risk.

As far as tardy payers are concerned, one method that can work quite well is to offer a 5% discount for prompt payment. Obviously, you need to have sufficient business to be able to increase your quotes a bit in order to cover the discount, but chasing late payments isn't free if you value your own time.

Thanks, I’ve looked into it a bit as we were going to start up a contract company - offering boiler service at monthly payments & insuring pipework, working, roofing ect. Myself & a few tradesmen (joiner, sparky, roofer, locksmith ect) but there was too many guys just looking at the money & thinking they would have range rovers by the end of the year so we canned the idea.
As for late payments we add 4% per month which often try to ignore & even after 3 months pay the original invoice but we push for the interest, as you say it costs money.

 

[Rob Foster]

Evening all,

I am wondering if any of you do finance options for boiler/heating installs?

I am looking into offering finance for boiler/heating installs, maybe bathrooms in time. Is this something any of you have done? Any suggestions?

This is my thoughts on pros & cons.
Pros - Extra income, increase work load/income, offering a service nobody else does on the island, paid right away from finance company.

Cons - Extra paperwork, financial conduct authority, what happens if people fail to pay?

It is just a thought for now but willing to hear any good or bad experiences.

I have a card machine & for customers with a credit card it has helped them a lot. We have quoted for 6 new boilers in the past 2 days, out of 6 there has been 2 that have asked if we do finance or card payment to use a credit card to help spread the costs....This is what got me thinking.

I have mentioned to a couple of good customers today that it is something I will be looking into & it has had a great response.

Thanks.

Edit - put this in here as I couldn’t see where to start a new thread other than in new members.

Never, get customer to get the money for you..we were heating engineers not never never men
dont forget the finance house will come after you if customer cuts up badly and this might be 3 years later
Rob Foster aka centralheatking