A lawn mowing business in Auckland: fuel in the tank before the contracts pay

Residential lawns, a few contracts

A solo operator mows lawns across Auckland. Most of the customers are homeowners, paid lawn by lawn, and most pay when the job is done or not long after.

A few commercial contracts sit alongside the residential work. They bring in the bulk of the income, and they set their own terms for paying it.

The contracts changed their terms

Then the contracts changed how they pay. Now a lawn mowed at the start of a month isn’t paid for until the 20th of the month after.

The mower doesn’t run on those terms. Fuel goes in before every job, gear wears out and has to be replaced, and none of that waits for the 20th.

At sign-up, the owner told the FundTap team the contracts had just moved to the 20th, and the gear and fuel couldn’t wait.

Funding the contract invoices

Their accountant pointed them to FundTap, and they signed up in December 2024. They funded one invoice that month.

When a contract invoice goes out with the 20th on it, the owner can fund it and have the money for fuel and gear now. The fee shows before they commit, and the contract customer still pays the business directly on the 20th.

The business pays its own way

With the contract invoice funded, the fuel, the gear and the running costs come out of the business’s own money, and the owner’s own pocket stays out of it.

That mattered to them. The owner also explained to the FundTap team that they didn’t want to keep covering business costs out of their own money.

Four invoices have been funded in all, one in December 2024 and three in 2025, two of those in March 2025. Nothing has been funded since, and the quiet stretch has cost nothing. The residential lawns pay as they’re done, and the next contract invoice can be funded if the 20th is too far away.

The timeline

1. December 2024 Referred by their accountant and signed up, with the contracts newly paying on the 20th of the month after.
2. December 2024 Funded their first invoice.
3. March 2025 Funded two invoices, the most in any month.

In numbers

• 20th of the month after: when the contracts now pay
• 4 invoices funded since December 2024, picked by the owner one at a time
• 2 invoices funded in March 2025, the busiest month

Sound like your business?

The contracts are the bulk of the money and they pay on the 20th of next month, but the mower needs fuel today. Fund the contract invoice and leave your own money where it is.

Get paid now for work you’ve already done.

Invoice finance for construction and trades  •  All case studies