An equipment hire business in the top of the South Island: clients paying late

Gear out on the roadworks

The business hires out traffic management gear across the top of the South Island: the lights, signs and message boards that go up around roadworks. Its customers are the roadworks and civil contractors running those sites.

The gear goes out, the hire runs, the invoice follows, and the contractors pay on the 20th of the month after. That is the deal on paper.

Wages due, sites still to pay

In practice the contractors often pay later than the 20th. A hire business carries its own costs regardless: the people who get the gear out to site and back, the vehicles, the yard. Wages land whether the sites have paid or not.

At sign-up, the owner told the FundTap team the clients had been paying late and the wages were due before the money would be in.

Funding the hire invoices

Their broker introduced them, and they signed up in March 2025 and connected Xero. They funded three hire invoices that month: hires already finished and invoiced, with the contractors due to pay on the 20th. That covered the wages, and the contractors paid the business on their usual date.

They see what it will cost before an invoice goes through, and they choose which ones do. Their funding limit was raised in March 2025 as well, as the invoices they wanted to fund added up.

Gear kept going out

With the wages sorted from invoices already raised, the gear kept going out to the sites. The staff were paid when they expected to be, and the business stopped waiting on the contractors to make payroll.

Through 2025 the hire work grew: 12 invoices funded that year, with November 2025 the busiest at five. Their funding limit went up again in December 2025 to match.

Ready for the next slow payer

They funded three more invoices in early 2026, the last of them in February 2026. Nothing has gone through since, and nothing has been charged. The next time a contractor’s payment lands after the wages do, the hire invoice gets funded and the rest of the book waits for the 20th.

The timeline

1. March 2025 Introduced by their broker and signed up, with contractors paying late and wages due.
2. March 2025 Funded their first hire invoices, three that month, and their funding limit was raised.
3. November 2025 Their busiest month, with five hire invoices funded.
4. December 2025 Funding limit raised again as the hire work grew.
5. February 2026 The most recent invoices funded, two that month.

In numbers

• 20th of the month after: when the roadworks contractors are due to pay
• 15 hire invoices funded since March 2025, each one their call
• 2 increases to their funding limit as the hire work grew
• 5 invoices funded in November 2025, the busiest month

Sound like your business?

The hire’s finished, the contractor pays on the 20th of next month, and the wages are due now. Fund that invoice and let the rest run to the 20th.

Get paid now for work you’ve already done.

Invoice finance for construction and trades  •  All case studies