Asset finance calculator

What this calculator does

This works out what a commercial finance deal costs per month, using numbers you supply. It is neutral: it does not know or care whether you are financing a prime mover, an excavator or a header, because the arithmetic is the same for all of them.

Put in the purchase price, any deposit or trade-in, the term you are considering and a rate you have been quoted. It returns the monthly repayment, the weekly equivalent, what a balloon would leave owing at the end, and how much of the total is interest.

It will not suggest a rate, because it does not have one. Rates in commercial asset finance are priced on the asset, the business and the lender, and there is no published benchmark to fall back on. The rate has to come from you, which is why an actual quote is worth more than any calculator.

Reading the result

The balance chart is the one worth looking at twice. With a balloon set, the line stops above zero rather than reaching it, and the gap is what you still owe on the last day of the term. That is the part buyers most often miss: a lower monthly repayment and a lump sum waiting at the end are the same decision, not two separate ones.

The breakdown ring splits everything you pay three ways: the part of the price your monthly repayments clear, the balloon waiting at the end, and the interest. Change the term and watch it move.

Drag your finger or your mouse along the balance line to read what you still owe at any month of the term. It works from the keyboard too: select the chart and use the arrow keys.

The copy button gives you a link that carries the numbers in the calculator and nothing else, so you can send the same scenario to your accountant or your business partner and they will open exactly what you were looking at.

What it deliberately leaves out

A repayment worked out from a price, a term and a rate is the shape of the deal, not the invoice. Several things sit between the two, and none of them is guessed at here.

Fees are not in it. An establishment or documentation fee, a monthly account fee, a broker fee where one applies, and any early payout cost all change what you actually pay, and they vary by lender and by deal. A quote lists them; a calculator that invented them would be worse than one that left them out.

The rate is not in it either, and that is the important one. There is no published benchmark for commercial asset finance the way there is for a home loan, so any rate shown here would be a number this site made up. You supply it, and what comes back is arithmetic on your assumption.

Tax is not in it. How a chattel mortgage, a lease or a hire purchase is treated, what happens with GST, and what can be claimed and when are questions for a registered tax agent or the ATO, and they depend on your business rather than on the asset.

Nor is whether a lender will approve it, or on these terms. That is priced on the asset, the deposit, how long the business has traded and what else it owes, which is the part a broker does and a calculator cannot.

What is left is still useful. It tells you whether a purchase is roughly affordable, what a longer term really costs, and what a balloon moves rather than removes, and it does that before you have spoken to anybody.

If you want it framed for your asset

The same tool, with the explanation written for one kind of purchase rather than all of them.

• Asset finance calculator: how to read the number
• Chattel mortgage calculator: reading the figure properly
• Equipment finance calculator with balloon: reading the trade
• Equipment finance calculator: how to use one properly
• Truck finance calculator: how to use one properly

None of this is credit assistance or personal advice, and it is not a quote. What a lender actually charges depends on your business, the asset, the security and the deal in front of them, which is why this page will not guess a rate for you.