Commercial Finance

Commercial finance in Perth: the short answer

Commercial finance is lending to a business rather than to a person: term debt to buy premises or equipment, acquisition debt to buy a business, and working capital to carry contracts, stock and 30 to 60 day payment terms. Lenders assess it on the cash flow and security of the business, not on a payslip, and the structure decides the approval as much as the numbers do. A commercial finance broker's job is to shape that structure and place it with the lender actively writing that deal type, and on most deals the lender pays the broker, not you.

Your growth is our business

The decision to take on commercial debt is rarely just a financial one. Buying your first commercial property, funding a business acquisition, or securing the facility that lets you take on a major contract are the moments that shape what a business becomes. We want to be part of those moments, not just process the paperwork around them.

That means being genuinely invested in the outcome. We came out of the major banks before founding Rockwall Finance, which means we have seen how credit decisions are made from the inside and we understand exactly how deals fall over when the structure does not hold. The real value is not just getting the application right. It is understanding where you are trying to go and making sure the structure you put in place today does not get in the way of what you want to do in three years.

Where the funding is for the assets a business runs on rather than its premises, our guide to business equipment finance covers how those facilities are structured and assessed.

Whether you're starting out, scaling up or making a move you've been planning for years, we're here to help you do it on the best possible terms.

What we can help with

If you are comparing finance brokers in Perth, the useful question is not who can lodge the form fastest. It is who can shape the credit case, match you with the right banking partner and keep the structure useful after settlement.

• Commercial term debt for property purchase, refinance or equity release
• Owner-occupied and investment commercial property lending
• Acquisition finance for buying a business or buying out a partner
• Goodwill finance where most of the purchase price sits above the tangible assets
• Rent roll finance for real estate agency purchases and growth
• Construction and development finance
• Mining services finance: mobilisation, progress claims and equipment for WA contractors
• Facility consolidation and security restructuring
• Business overdrafts and revolving working capital facilities
• Trade finance and import/export facilities
• Debtor finance and invoice discounting
• Unsecured and partially secured business term loans
• SMSF lending for commercial property

Commercial serviceability is assessed differently to residential, and the ratio lenders apply is rarely the one borrowers expect. Our guide to commercial loan DSCR sets out what published lender policy actually says, why APRA does not set a minimum, and why the assessment buffer decides more deals than the ratio does.

Who we work with

Businesses at every stage, from pre-revenue startups with a clear plan and the right security to established operators making their next move. We work across most industries: construction, professional services, healthcare, retail, hospitality, trade, manufacturing and more. The short list of deals we can't help with is genuinely short: we won't act for businesses operating outside the law, and some highly speculative structures without a clear repayment pathway fall outside what any responsible lender will touch. Everything else is worth a conversation. That includes businesses carrying ATO debt, which narrows the lender list but rarely closes it; our guide to business loans with tax debt explains how those deals get done.

Why lender selection matters

Not every lender suits every deal. Appetite, policy, pricing and turnaround time all vary significantly, and submitting to the wrong one wastes time and can affect your credit position. Choosing the right lender before you submit is half the work, and it's work most borrowers have no visibility over.

The difference between lenders on a commercial deal is not just rate. Major banks assess commercial loans against internal credit policies that change without notice and are inconsistent across branches. Non-bank lenders move faster and take different security positions, but their covenants and exit terms need careful reading. Private lenders and specialist credit providers can do what the others won't, at a cost that needs to be built into the deal modelling from day one.

We assess lender fit before any submission goes out. That means understanding the deal's security profile, the borrower's trading history, the purpose of funds, and the intended hold period, then matching that against lenders who are actively writing that type of deal right now. Getting this right upfront is what prevents a declined application from following you around, and what keeps your options open when the structure needs to change down the track.

Before you start a conversation with any lender, our free business finance check gives you a quick read on how your business presents on paper and what to tidy up first.

Why businesses put us in the deal

Bankers first, brokers second. Rockwall was founded by two former commercial bankers. We spent those years on the lender's side of business lending, which is why we structure a commercial deal the way the person approving it will read it.

Access to more than 40 lenders. Through our Finsure accreditation we can take a deal to the major banks and to the non-bank, specialist and private lenders that fund what the majors decline, and we know which of them are actively writing that deal type right now.

We pick the lender before we submit, not after a decline. A knockback follows a business around. We assess security profile, trading history, purpose of funds and hold period against current lender appetite before any application goes out.

Licensed and accountable. We are MFAA members and Credit Representatives (579184, 579182 and 580433) of Finsure Finance & Insurance Pty Ltd.

A worked example: carrying a $600,000 contract

Take a services business that wins a $600,000 contract over 6 months, billed as $100,000 a month. Its costs run at about 70% of revenue, so $70,000 a month goes out in wages, fuel and suppliers, most of it weekly. The client pays each monthly claim 45 days after month end. Before the first dollar arrives, the business has carried roughly 2.5 months of costs, which is $175,000 of its own cash.

• Overdraft: a revolving limit sized to the timing gap, drawn and repaid as claims land. Simple, but the limit is set on the business's history, not the new contract.
• Invoice finance: an advance of around 80% of each certified claim within days, so $80,000 of the first $100,000 claim arrives in week 1 rather than day 75. The facility grows with the contract, which is why it suits a business whose problem is growth rather than weakness.
• Equipment finance on the gear the job needs: keeps capital in the business instead of in a machine, and is assessed against the asset rather than the working capital position.

The figures are a pattern, not a quote. The point is the shape: the funding need is created by the payment terms, so the facility has to be sized from the contract, not from a rule of thumb. This is the working capital picture we build first on contractor files, including the mining services deals where claims, retention and mobilisation all arrive at once.

Commercial finance broker for small business

Most of what is written about commercial finance assumes a deal in the millions. For an owner-operator borrowing $50,000 to $500,000, 3 things change. Fewer lenders publish policy at that size, so lender selection is done on live appetite rather than on a product sheet. Security decides more: an unsecured business loan is assessed on trading history and bank statements, and a loan secured on equipment or property is assessed on the asset, so the same business can get 2 very different answers depending on which door it walks through. The paperwork matters more, not less, because a small deal gets less credit-team time, so a clean 12 months of statements, lodged BAS and a one-page purpose note do most of the work.

The tools for a small business are usually a business overdraft for timing gaps, business equipment finance for the assets the work runs on, and a term loan for a defined purpose. If an application has already been knocked back, read what to do after a business loan is declined before applying anywhere else, because a second decline follows a business around. Our free business finance check is the 2-minute version of that conversation.

Frequently asked questions