Gauging The Growing Pains: The Hidden Costs Of Brewery Expansion

Gauging The Growing Pains: The Hidden Costs Of Brewery Expansion

March 29, 2018
12:00 pm
Brewery, Brewery Equipment, Equipment, Working Capital

As a brewer with a passion for your product, the last thing you want to do is stand still. If you make beers that people love, you everyone to have a chance to enjoy them. There’s no doubt, then, that you’ll expand your sales at the first opportunity. But before you do, you should be aware of the costly challenges that brewers face as they grow larger, including:

Big League Branding

As a local brewer, you had automatic authenticity with your customer base. You understood their culture, cuisine, and drinking habits, and could thus cater directly to them. But as you expand into other markets, you’ll have to start selling to people you don’t know as well. It will thus be an uphill battle getting them to try your beers instead of sticking to their current favorites.

To build authenticity in a community you’re not part of, you will need to conduct comprehensive market research and build a tailored publicity campaign. This strategy is expensive and takes time, so make sure you have access to flexible, affordable working capital to pay for a campaign every time you expand into a new market.

A Cornucopia of Codes

Brewers are subject to a host of health and environmental regulations, and those regulations vary across local, state, and (especially) national lines. Thus the more you expand, the greater your likelihood of running into regulatory issues. Your best bet is to research all the laws and statutes every time you move into a new jurisdiction, and do everything you can to comply with them ahead of time. But this can be expensive, especially if you have to invest in new equipment. Thus make sure you have either the savings or the working capital to make costly investments upfront.

Climbing Capacity

Expanding your operations frequently requires adding production capacity, which means investing in expensive capital equipment. The problem with such investments is that you have to make them months before you achieve any sales in the new market. Consequently, you’ll need to raise a large supply of cash as soon as you make the decision to expand. Unless you have ample cash on hand, working capital is likely the best way to raise this money. Even if you do have cash on hand, you might still want to use working capital, as it will prevent you from tying up all your money in expensive equipment investments.

To learn more about working capital for brewers and countless other businesses, contact Dimension Funding today.

Constraint-Free Construction: The Importance Of Financial Flexibility In The Building Industry

March 23, 2018
12:00 pm
Construction, Construction Equipment, Equipment, Leasing, Working Capital

Success in business is only possible if you plan ahead, and this is particularly true in the construction industry. Building companies have to deal with a wide variety of contingencies that can suddenly raise their costs or cut their revenues. This creates serious shortfalls, making it essential that you have flexible financing to cover them.

Working capital offers the financial flexibility you need to deal with these problems. By providing cash, they allow companies with few liquid assets to cover cost increases and revenue shortfalls. Thus by maintaining access to working capital, you can survive:

Rising Resource Costs

From wood to drywall to wiring to scaffolding, construction companies need countless resources. Relatively minor changes in commodity prices can send the cost of these resources through the roof. For example, a sudden increase in demand for metal can drive up the price of wiring, scaffolding, and pipes, among other resources. These developments may well raise operating costs above what you’ve budgeted for. Working capital loans let you cover the difference until either the costs fall back down or your revenues rise to match.

Sudden Revenue Shortfalls

No matter how reliable and honest your clients are, there’s always a chance that they’ll fail to pay for your services on time. Even clients who work with you in good faith may still have to deal with financial problems on their end, forcing them to stall payments. If they simply don’t have the money, there’s not much you can do other than wait for them to get it, but you still need to fund your company until they do. Working capital lets you pay for everything while you’re waiting, so that your company doesn’t miss out on future opportunities because of problems with past work.

Inclement Weather

While you likely plan your operations around weather forecasts, storms sometimes travel farther or prove more intense than predicted. This can delay your operations, and thus your payments, for days or even weeks at a time. In the meantime, you’ll have lots of fixed costs that you still need to cover. With access to copious working capital, you won’t have any trouble doing this.

Injuries & Safety Issues

When a worker gets injured, your costs can increase markedly. Not only must you pay for their workers’ compensation, but if the cause of the accident isn’t immediately apparent, you’ll have to stop construction, identify it, and shore it up. With working capital, you can cover all these costs, restore your business to full safety, and get back to work.

For more information on costly contingencies in the construction industry or to obtain the working capital to deal with them, contact Dimension Funding today.

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Wagering On Washing: Why Improved Sanitation in Breweries Is A Worthy Investment

March 21, 2018
12:00 pm
Blog, Brewery, Equipment, Working Capital

As a brewery, you don’t just have a responsibility to satisfy your customers. You also have to keep them healthy and safe! You understand the importance of sanitation, and the benefits of improving it at every opportunity. By investing in new keg washers and other brewery cleaning equipment, you can obtain the highest standards of sanitation in your industry. This leads to large and lasting benefits, making it one of the best ways to invest in your brewery.

The Benefits of Improved Sanitation in Breweries

While most breweries understand that sanitation is important, there are some who are not aware of the full impact it can have. By purchasing the best possible cleaning equipment and taking full advantage of it, you can:

Reduce Interruptions– If one of your customers gets sick from consuming your product, you may need to shut your operations down and fix the problem. Your costs will thus increase even as your revenues grind to a halt. Investing in better sanitation equipment reduces both the frequency and the severity of these interruptions, bolstering your company’s finances.
Build a Better Brand– By buying the most advanced sanitation equipment on the market, you go beyond other breweries and establish yourself as a leader in cleanliness. This causes customers to trust you above your competitors, leading to greater loyalty and more consistent sales.
Prepare for Future Standards– What is considered advanced sanitation tech today will become the industry standard down the road. By adopting this technology now, you have more time to adapt to it, allowing you to incorporate it more effectively and with fewer disruptions.

Through these and other benefits, investing in the most effective cleaning equipment pays for itself many times over.

How Working Capital Helps You Invest in Cleanliness

Even after learning all the benefits of advanced sanitation, many companies are hesitant or unable to invest in it due to simple cost constraints. Cleaning equipment is expensive, and all but the largest brewers lack the cash to buy it outright. Thus when new devices become available, many brewers must slowly save up money before they can buy them.

Working capital loans let you skip the saving and start cleaning. They provide generous funding for new equipment, so you can make improvements now and then pay for them as your costs fall and revenues rise. As a result, you’ll never have trouble staying ahead of the curve on sanitation.

For more information on working capital, financing equipment, sanitation, and other keys to success in the brewing industry, contact Dimension Funding today.

breweries cleaning equipment sanitation working capital

Shocks To The System: Sources Of Disruption In The Brewing Industry

Shocks To The System: Sources Of Disruption In The Brewing Industry

To paraphrase Murphy’s Law, if there’s a chance that something can go wrong, sooner or later it will. No one needs to understand this maxim better than brewers. The brewing industry has to deal with a wide variety of disruptions that can raise costs, lower revenues, or otherwise threaten production. In order to weather these issues, you must maintain access to a steady source of working capital. This is particularly important if you are dealing with:

Sanitation Scares

No matter how diligent you are about keeping your brewery clean, there’s always a risk that there will be some sort of health or sanitation problem with your product. Often, such problems are the result of issues with your ingredients and other supplies, which you may have had no way of knowing about ahead of time. Regardless of the source, you’ll likely have to stop production for days or even weeks so that you can clean your equipment and replace any contaminated supplies.

Working capital is essential when you’re facing sanitation issues. Not only will revenues fall because you can’t sell your product, but depending on how extensive the cleaning is or how much inventory you have to replace, your costs may increase dramatically. With working capital, you can stay above water financially until your production lines are back up and running.

Climbing Costs

Besides health and sanitation issues, you may have to deal with sudden increases in the cost of key supplies. Perhaps there is a crop failure that reduces the availability of an ingredient that you rely on, driving up the price of remaining stocks. It’s also possible that the cost of maintaining and replacing brewery equipment will rise.

While you can adjust to costs increases by cutting costs elsewhere or raising your prices, it may take time before you are able to fully make up the difference. Working capital lets you keep your business running in the meantime, giving you the breathing room to get your finances in order.

Inadequate Brewery Equipment

Success in brewing means responding to new market opportunities, but sometimes your equipment can hold you back. Say you identify an untapped market for a certain type of beer, but you don’t have the equipment to make it. Unless you can get that equipment, you’ll lose that market to someone else. Working capital allows you to buy new equipment and pursue such opportunities whenever they arise.

Dimension Funding offers working capital and equipment leases for breweries and countless other types of businesses. Contact us today to learn more about how our capital can benefit your company.

Brewing Industry loans working capital

Careful Construction: The Importance Of Working Capital To Worksite Safety

Importance of Working Capital to Construction site Safety

Careful Construction: The Importance Of Working Capital To Worksite Safety

March 16, 2018
12:00 pm
Blog, Construction, Equipment, Working Capital

Of all the duties that construction companies must fulfill, none is more important than keeping their worksites safe. Not only do such companies have a responsibility to their workers, who face some of the highest workplace injury rates in the modern market, but they must also safeguard anyone else in the area. To keep everyone safe while still running a productive business, you have to make a variety of investments on a regular basis. Working capital is essential for financing all these investments, including:

Quality Construction Uniforms

One of the simplest and most effective strategies for improving employees’ safety is investing in quality uniforms and other workplace gear. Construction uniforms use bright colors and reflective tape to alert workers to each other’s location. They also contain spaces to hold essential tools or attach harnesses. Certain uniforms may improve safety in particular climates. For example, if you do construction work in the American South during the summer, you’ll need gear that protects employees from heat and sun exposure.

Quality uniforms don’t come cheap, and if you need to rapidly expand your labor force or replace a large number of worn gear all at once, it may be hard to cover the cost from your ordinary revenues. Working capital allows you to pay for new uniforms whenever you need them, ensuring your employees have the gear necessary to stay safe at all times.

Effective Construction Equipment

From scaffolding to harnesses to precise measurement tools, quality construction equipment is critical to the well being of your employees. For maximal safety, it is essential not just to buy and use this equipment, but to replace it with more advanced equipment at every opportunity. These investments are almost always highly expensive, and only pay for themselves over long periods of time. Working capital will let you cover such costs now, achieving immediate improvements in employee safety.

Training Updates

No matter what uniforms and equipment they have to work with, employees can only stay safe if they have the necessary skills. You thus have to offer them periodic training courses that cover basic construction site safety while updating workers on any new gear or equipment they have to work with. Working capital may be necessary in order to obtain the best possible training instructors, software, and other resources. You may also need it to pay for lost productivity, since your employees will have to take time off work while training is going on.

Whether you’re looking to buy new equipment, update your uniforms, or pay for training courses, Dimension Funding has the working capital you need. For more information on providing a safe, efficient workplace, visit our website today.

construction working capital worksite safety

Sanitation Service: How Working Capital Helps You Keep Your Brewery Clean

How Working Capital Helps with Brewery Sanitation

Sanitation Service: How Working Capital Helps You Keep Your Brewery Clean

Of all the challenges that brewers face, none are more important than the need to keep your operations clean. As a brewing company, you have a responsibility to protect your customers and employees against diseases, harmful chemicals, and anything else that could impact their health. But it’s only possible to protect them if you have advanced brewery cleaning equipment, and small companies often lack the resources to invest in such devices. Working capital lets you make the investments necessary to keep your employees and customers safe and healthy.

Shoring Up Brewery Sanitation with Working Capital

Working capital gives you the money you need to make instant improvements in your brewery. This lets you raise sanitation levels on multiple fronts, including by:

Expanding Your Equipment– Keg washers and other advanced sanitation devices allow you to clean your brewing equipment more thoroughly and more quickly. With working capital, you will be able to buy this equipment as soon as you go into business. You can also update it whenever more advanced cleaning equipment becomes available, so that you can achieve continuous improvements in sanitation throughout your time in business.
Enhancing Maintenance Activities– Besides investing in quality equipment in the first place, working capital gives you the funding to conduct more inspections and repairs on that equipment. This ensures that you can continue cleaning your brewery effectively over the long haul.
Improving Your Ingredients– Health and sanitation are closely linked to the quality of the ingredients you use. Working capital gives you the financial flexibility to invest in the best possible ingredients, as well as the facilities to preserve them. This decreases the chance that anything will go wrong with the inputs you use.

In addition to helping you avoid sanitation issues in the first place, working capital makes it easier for your brewery to weather them when they do occur. Say that you discover there is something wrong with a batch of beer you produced. You will need to recall all that beer and stop production until you can figure out and eliminate the cause of the problem. All these damage control activities are highly expensive, making it harder for smaller companies with few savings to weather them. Working capital allows you to stay afloat financially until you have the problem under control and can get back to selling your brews.

Dimension Funding offers flexible working capital for breweries of all sizes, as well as insight into all the ways this funding can enhance your company. For more information or to request our services, visit our website today.

Brewing Industry working capital

Restaurant Reinforcement: The Importance Of Working Capital In The Food Business

Restaurant Reinforcement: The Importance Of Working Capital In The Food Business

Business Financing for Restaurants Means Better Profitability

Whether you run a large restaurant chain, a single cafe, or anything in between, financing is always a challenge in the food business. Not only do you need a large supply of inventory and equipment at all times, but you also must be prepared to address sudden changes that sap your revenue or raise costs. Only through regular access to affordable working capital can you meet these obligations and stay profitable. Dimension Funding offers working capital at generous rates and with little paperwork, making it easy for you to:

Invest in Equipment

No restaurant can afford to wait for more advanced equipment. The latest grills, fryers, stoves, and order devices improve kitchen efficiency, speeding up the cooking process while saving electricity and gas. This means that every second you wait to purchase new devices is wasted money, but how can you make such expensive investments if you don’t have cash on hand?

Working capital provides a simple solution to this problem. By borrowing the funds to purchase new restaurant equipment now and paying off the loan with the savings and revenues you generate, you can take advantages of all opportunities to enhance your business as soon as they arise. In this way, you’ll never miss a chance to cut costs and expand your market share.

Shore Up Safety

In addition to cutting costs and boosting revenues, working capital gives you a chance to achieve greater health and safety for your customers and employees. Keeping food free from contamination means buying the best cleaning and refrigeration products on the market. Likewise, if you want to avoid slip, fall, and trip injuries, you have to keep your floor in good condition. All of these steps require heavy upfront investments, and working capital gives you the money to make such investments. In this way, you can improve your company’s reputation while keeping liabilities and settlements to a minimum.

Survive a Shifting Market

The restaurant industry is subject to constant shifts in demand and costs, some predictable and others sudden. Say that you depend on tourists for much of your business, but most of those tourists come during the summer. You’ll still have to pay your employees, suppliers, and landlord the rest of the year, but may not have enough revenue to do so. Likewise, if a natural disaster damages your premises or disrupts supply lines, your costs could rise dramatically. Working capital lets you weather these shifts, staying in business until your costs and revenues return to normal.

Dimension Funding is committed to helping your restaurant succeed. We supply working capital and a variety of other financing options, allowing you to make the investments you need quickly and affordably. For more information, contact us today.

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Tag: working capital