Financing a fire truck has 3 steps - credit approval, documentation, and payment for the fire truck.

The credit process begins when you provide financial information about your revenue, expenses, the assets you own, and any debt you owe. We analyze the information and provide an analysis of the best way for you to save money and get the truck you need.

The documentation process begins after credit approval. We prepare financing documents that contain our agreement about how much money you are borrowing, when and how much you pay back, and other general financing terms. We help you extensively through this process so that you are assured of being in full compliance with all legal requirements.

The final step begins just before your vendor is requesting payment. We obtain information from the vendor and confirm valid insurance. We send you a Payment Authorization so that you are charge of when your vendor is paid.

It typically takes about 35-45 days to complete a fully legal tax-exempt financing at a comfortable pace. We have many ideas how to shorten that timeframe for a more urgent situation.

Tax-exempt financing does not have anything to do with your not-for-profit status or whether you pay sales or income taxes or not. Tax-exempt financing means that you meet the rigid IRS rules to have loans with a lower interest rate (the rate is lower because the bank does not have to pay income taxes on the interest you pay).

A lease-purchase agreement is used to meet the local rules restricting how much debt an entity can have. By using a lease-purchase agreement, the payments can be treated as an operating expense and not a capital expense.

You are buying the truck. A tax-exempt lease purchase agreement is not like an auto lease, for example, where you pay payments for a few years and then turn it back in or buy it. The purpose of a agreement like this is to buy and own the truck. You own the truck during the repayment period.

The biggest two differences is that you own the truck during the repayment period and you don't have a "buyout" after you make payments for a few years. You own the truck, free and clear, after you make all the scheduled payments.

Nothing. Not one penny. You will not pay anything except for the agreed payments.

We require you to have an attorney to protect yourself that you are not agreeing to anything that you may find unacceptable. Your attorney may request us to change the agreement to suite you.

Also, the attorney verifies that you have kept current in your legal filings and are a valid legal entity.

We will request information for the past three years so that we can determine your revenue, expenses, assets, and loans. We use that information to perform a complete analysis so you are assured you will have no financial stress in buying your new truck.

Manufacturers offer prepayment discounts so they can basically "borrow" the money from you while they build your truck rather than borrow from their local bank while they buy chassis, wheels, pumps, etc. They offer discount rate lower than what their bank charges them.

Perhaps. Our Lending Size-Up™ includes a full analysis of the alternatives to prepaying your truck. You will know why you choose to prepay or not.

The primary considerations are the financial strength of the manufacturer and the alternative financial returns of that money instead prepaying. Many manufacturers have gone out of business in the past - some big names, to. We have seen tragic situations where a department is out all their money with no truck.