One of the better ways to protect your investment on a piece of equipment is to purchase a maintenance agreement for it. This is especially true if your equipment is expensive, and/or it’s really needed for your company to operate.
We’ve become somewhat conditioned as a society to resist certain add-ons. This usually comes into play at the electronics store, when the clerk asks you if you want a $199 warrantee / maintenance agreement on your $400 TV. Yea, that makes no sense at all.
But that’s not what we’re discussing here. Very often, companies come to us to finance equipment that is not only quite expensive, but also quite specialized. Items like technologically advanced medical equipment, CNC machines, specialized vehicles (like heavy equipment, cranes, well drillers, and similar), computerized POS / real-time inventory systems that span many locations… these are all examples of equipment that a company made a significant investment in, and needs to have working all the time.
The kicker here is these aren’t examples of equipment that a lot of people have experience working on. You’re not calling “Buck with a Truck” to perform yearly maintenance on (or fix) your CNC plasma cutting machine. You’re probably calling the company that sold it to you. And in a perfect world, you bought the maintenance agreement along with that plasma cutter.
But not everyone buys the maintenance agreement. Why? Because they financed the machine, and the bank wouldn’t include the maintenance agreement in the financing deal (indeed, the bank probably only financed 80% of the machine in the first place, but that’s for another post.) So the company goes without one, meaning they don’t get yearly maintenance, and they don’t move to the front of the line when a repair is needed.
That’s why, when you finance an expensive / key piece of equipment, it’s important to work with an equipment financing company who not only lend you all the money you need, but will ALSO finance the maintenance agreement. This ensures you can keep that expensive piece of equipment in good running order. Side note to this: as a lender, wouldn’t you want your customer to always be in full production mode? It makes paying back a loan so much easier. So to me, financing a maintenance agreement falls under the “no brainer” category.
Get the maintenance agreement with your equipment – insist your lender finance it, and if they won’t, shop around for someone who will (like me!)