01 Mini excavator (1–8t)
Buyers are plentiful, but a small contract can sit near a funder's minimum.
By machine
How each machine type behaves in a finance decision.
Excavators hold the deepest resale market in yellow goods, and on the files we place they draw the widest funder interest. Graders and crushing plant sit at the other end. The more specialised the machine, the shorter the term we plan for and the tighter the funder list.
02 Excavator (8–20t)
The yellow goods asset we place most readily.
03 Excavator (20–30t+)
Fewer buyers at resale, and the work behind the machine carries more weight.
04 Wheel loader
Quarry and recycling demand; we lead with application, not brand.
05 Skid steer / posi-track
Turns over quickly, and it is often a first machine.
06 Dozer
Undercarriage moves value sharply, so we expect closer inspection.
07 Grader
A narrow council market, and we plan for a shorter term.
08 Roller and compaction
Lower value with steady demand.
09 Crushing and screening
A small buyer pool, and it can be looked at as fixed plant rather than mobile.
These reads are Black Mountain Financial's own view of the plant files we place — not panel policy and not market data. Illustrative and deal-dependent, subject to lender assessment.
Attachments & control
Attachments, buckets and machine control in one facility.
Usually yes, if they sit on the same supplier invoice as the machine. Bought separately, they are a second invoice and a second decision. Price the attachments and the machine control into the deal before the order goes in, not after.
01 On the invoice
Buckets, a tilt hitch, a hammer and dealer-fitted machine control fund as one asset. Bought separately, a low-value attachment may not clear the funder's minimum finance amount, and it then comes from a deposit instead.
02 Security and the PPSR
A lender registers its security interest on the Personal Property Securities Register, the national register of security interests in personal property (ppsr.gov.au). The machine carries a serial number; most buckets and hitches do not, so ask how yours will be registered.
03 When attachments move
Security follows the goods, not the machine. A financed tilt hitch fitted to a second excavator still secures the first facility. On sale, agree in writing which attachments go with it.
04 Machine control
Hardware plus a subscription, and a subscription is a service, not an asset. Where the system comes under the vendor's own agreement, check whether that creates a competing interest before you sign either document.
Plant packages
A plant package — one facility or four?
A master facility with separate asset schedules beats four separate loans. One credit decision, one limit, and each machine keeps its own term, balloon and payout figure. Separate facilities still make sense when the machines sit in different entities.
01 Partial payout is the reason
Sell the excavator in year three and you pay out that schedule alone. The registration against that serial number is discharged and the rest runs untouched. A blended loan must be unpicked to release one machine.
02 A package is assessed as a package
The lender weighs combined commitments against contracted and forecast income, then asks what happens if one machine sits idle. The weakest asset shapes all four.
03 Ask two questions before you sign
Do the assets cross-secure each other? What does the funder re-verify at each drawdown?
Take the shape we see most in the Capital Region — a 20-tonne excavator, a float, and two tippers to cart for it. Four assets, one contract. This example is illustrative.
Tippers and floats follow our truck finance page. The plant packages we put together settle under a chattel mortgage more often than anything else, which is our experience of these files rather than market data. business.gov.au notes you own the asset from the start, and a balloon reduces regular payments.
The contract
Structure the finance around the contract.
Match the term to the work pipeline, not to the machine alone. A five-year term behind a two-year contract leaves three years of repayments earned elsewhere.
A signed contract with rates and a term is the strongest document you can bring a credit team.
Now the honest part. Gearing a fleet to one contract concentrates your risk in one counterparty. If the work is varied, delayed by weather, or ends without the option exercised, the repayments do not change. Option years are not contracted income.
So the test is blunt. Could you carry the repayments for six months without that contract? If not, the fleet is geared to the contract, not the business. That can still be the right call.
Buying used
Used, ex-hire, auction or import — what changes?
Hours drive value in yellow goods more than age does. A six-year-old excavator at 3,000 hours can present better than a three-year-old at 9,000. Hour meter verification and inspection do the real work.
01 Search the PPSR first
Search by machine serial number before you pay a deposit. It shows whether the machine already carries a security interest (ppsr.gov.au).
02 Ex-hire
Hire fleets turn machines over on a schedule, not on failure. Hours run high but service history is usually complete. Verify the hour meter and read the file.
03 Auction
Bid on plant with your approval already lodged, because an auction gives you no window to arrange finance afterwards. Our farm machinery finance page sets out the clearing sale and auction process in full.
04 Private sale
On the private-sale plant files we place, expect an independent inspection, and funds paid direct to the seller against verified account details.
05 Direct import
Imports complicate valuation, parts and warranty. Ask early whether your funder will write a machine with no local dealer behind it.
06 Age at the end of the term
A seven-year-old machine on a five-year term is twelve years old at balloon. Illustrative and deal-dependent, subject to lender assessment.
Instant asset write-off
Does the write-off cover a $450K excavator?
No. A $450K excavator is more than twenty times the $20,000 instant asset write-off threshold, so it lands in the small business simplified depreciation pool rather than a full deduction. Its legislative status this year is the part worth checking, and our instant asset write-off article covers it. We do not give tax advice. Take your own position to your accountant, and check ato.gov.au.
Whether a separately bought bucket is its own depreciating asset is your accountant's call.
Your first machine
Buying your first machine on your own ABN.
A shorter trading history isn't an automatic no. Some funders will consider a business under two years old where there's strong asset security, an established director track record, or contracted forward income — assessed case by case, and never guaranteed. If it's not a fit, we'll tell you early.
What matters here is the machine, the work it is going to, and the deposit behind it. Bring us all three and we will tell you where it places.
Bigger picture
When plant finance becomes a property or working-capital conversation.
Usually around machine three or four. The first problem is where the plant lives. Yard rent and hardstand get expensive, and buying that site is a commercial property finance question.
The second is the gap between running plant and being paid. Mobilisation, fuel, operators and insurance land before the first progress claim is certified. That is a working capital and capex conversation.
We handle both, alongside equipment finance. George Popadalis runs every file personally, with 20+ years across banking & finance behind it.