Inventory and stock finance enquiries: owners funding what they need to sell
A stock finance enquiry is a timing problem with a physical, costed, identifiable pile of goods sitting in the middle of it. That is what separates it from a general cash-flow request, and it changes which lenders will look at it.
An inventory finance enquiry comes from a trading business that has to pay for goods before it can sell them. Importers paying a supplier deposit months before the container lands, retailers committing to a peak-season buy, wholesalers holding stock for customers who buy on terms. Cash leaves at the purchase order and comes back after the sale, and the distance between those two events is longer than the trading account can carry.
For the broker it is the most structurable of the cash-flow enquiries, because there is something specific to point at: a named supplier, a known landed cost, a selling season already in the diary. That is what separates it from an open-ended cash flow gap.
These enquiries cluster in a few business types. Importers and wholesalers who pay on order and again before shipment, then wait on freight, duty and GST at the border before a unit is sold. Retailers and online sellers buying months ahead of the revenue. Distributors and trade suppliers who fund the goods and then fund the receivable behind them. Food and beverage businesses running a production batch to a seasonal calendar.
The trigger is rarely distress. It is usually an opportunity the trading account cannot absorb: a volume discount worth taking, a new brand or agency with an opening order attached, a customer order too large to fill from existing stock, or a decision to hold buffer after a stretch of unreliable lead times. The pattern is consistent: inventory rising, trading result healthy, bank balance tight. Owners call it a good problem, and they are right, but it is still the point at which growth funded out of retained cash runs out of room. It is the sharpest version of a working-capital enquiry, because the gap has a name and a price on it.
"I have to pay before it ships"
Import terms: money on order, the balance before the goods leave, nothing sellable until the container clears. Ask whether the deposit is already paid.
"It is already sold, I just cannot buy it"
A customer order sits behind the goods, so the repayment is identified before the funding goes in. Get the order, the customer and the terms.
"The supplier offered a better price on volume"
A margin argument, not a survival one. The discount only pays if the goods turn, so ask how quickly this line has historically sold.
"I am building up for the busy period"
Seasonal buying, committed well ahead of the trade. Term matters more than limit: the facility must run past the selling season and into collection.
"The stock is here and all my cash is in it"
Goods landed and paid for, and the owner wants to know whether the shelf itself can support a facility. What is already registered decides that.
Most of this enquiry type is decided in the first conversation, from facts the owner already has to hand.
- Sold forward, or speculative? An order behind the goods identifies the repayment before the money goes out. Speculative buying is still fundable, but on the strength of the business rather than the stock.
- Imported or domestic? Imported brings freight, duty and GST at the border, a currency exposure between order and payment, and a supplier who wants paying before anything moves. That is a trade finance shape, not a term loan shape.
- What is already registered? A general security agreement on the Personal Property Securities Register covering inventory will stop a new stock lender before anything else does. Check the register, not the owner's recollection.
- Do the goods hold value away from this owner? Durable, identifiable and saleable to someone else is what makes stock security. Perishables, custom runs and end-of-season fashion rarely qualify alone.
- Spike or step-up? Stock turn sets the term. A one-off buy suits a transaction facility; a business that has structurally grown needs a revolving limit.
Beyond that it is ordinary groundwork: an ABN-registered, GST-registered trading entity, a genuine funding need, and a timeframe that is real.
Stock rarely sits high on a major bank's preferred security list. Inventory is hard to value, harder to control and easiest to lose, so most of the appetite sits with specialist trade and supply-chain financiers, non-bank cash-flow lenders, and invoice finance houses that will bolt a stock line onto a receivables facility. Banks tend to fund the same purchase behind property or other security instead, on a different timeline. Where money is needed before the container moves, the deal usually lands outside the majors, which is why the enquiry reaches a broker rather than the owner's existing bank.
Keep it apart from equipment while you are on the call: the machine that makes the product is an asset finance conversation, and where a property or an existing facility sits behind the request it belongs with commercial finance.
Business credit is growing 10.8% year on year (RBA, July 2026). Aggregate growth says nothing about which lenders will take goods as security.
Inventory and stock enquiries arrive inside our business loan leads flow rather than as a separate product, and it is the purpose the owner states at submission that marks this one out as goods rather than a general shortfall. Every enquiry is generated in Australia from our own campaigns, sold once to a single broker and never resold, and delivered to your inbox or CRM in real time with the finance type, amount, purpose, timeframe and the owner's own notes attached. Every mobile is confirmed by SMS code before the lead ships, alongside automated scoring and a human qualification review, and our published contact rate is 72.5%. Pay per lead, no lock-in contracts, no setup fees, campaigns typically live within seven days, and La Vitesse does not provide financial, credit or tax advice.