A dental practice buys some of the most expensive and longest-lived equipment in small business, and it buys it in a market where the manufacturer usually offers finance at the point of sale. That makes dental equipment financing unusual: the easiest option is nearly always the vendor's own, and it is nearly always worth pricing something else beside it before signing.
Chairs, imaging and everything else
A dental chair and delivery unit has a fifteen to twenty year working life, holds value, and has a real secondhand market, so it finances long and cheaply. Digital imaging, intraoral scanners and CAD milling depreciate the way computing equipment does and should be financed over a much shorter term, because a seven-year facility on a scanner that is superseded in four is a payment against an asset you have replaced. Sterilisation, cabinetry and surgery fit-out sit in between and often cannot be financed as equipment at all, because they are attached to a leasehold.
Vendor finance and what to compare it with
Manufacturers and distributors offer finance because it sells equipment, and the rate is often genuinely competitive because the margin is in the machine. It is also the offer least likely to be compared, since it arrives while you are choosing the chair. Get one independent quote before accepting it. Ask both for the total cost of borrowing rather than the monthly figure, and ask what happens at the end: a vendor lease that ends in a balloon or a return obligation is a different product from a facility that ends in ownership.
What the published bars mean for a new practice
Every lender in this record that publishes a minimum time in business asks six months or more, and the strictest published equipment programme asks two years. An associate buying into or starting a practice clears very few of those. The routes are a personal guarantee against a professional's own credit file, which in dentistry is often strong, a larger deposit, or the vendor's own paper, which is frequently the most accommodating because the seller wants the sale. All three are worth asking about together.
Questions people ask about dental equipment financing
Can a new dental practice finance equipment?
Often, and more easily than it can borrow working capital, because the equipment secures the facility. Expect a personal guarantee, and expect the practitioner's own credit file to carry more weight than the practice's non-existent trading history.
Should I take the manufacturer's finance?
Sometimes it is the best offer and it is the one least often compared. Get one independent quote, compare total cost of borrowing rather than the monthly payment, and establish what happens at the end of the term in both.
How long a term should dental equipment be financed over?
Match the term to the working life. A chair justifies a long facility; imaging and digital equipment do not, because a seven-year payment on a four-year technology is a payment against something you no longer use.