How to fund a large order you can't yet afford to fill

The email says they want ten thousand units by March. It’s the biggest order you’ve ever had, and your first thought is a good one. Your second is the bank balance.

A big order is a cash event before it’s a profit event. You buy, make, pack and deliver, then wait. The sale only helps you once the money lands, and what you can do in between depends on how well you’ve sized the gap. Here is a way to work it through before you say yes.

How big is the cash gap, really?

Ignore the sale price. List every dollar that leaves before the first customer payment arrives and add them up. Then subtract anything the customer pays you early.

Cost to fill the order	Example	When it’s paid
Materials or stock	$62k	On order or on supplier terms
Extra labour or overtime	$14k	Weekly
Freight and packaging	$6k	On dispatch
Subcontractors	$9k	Monthly
GST on purchases	Refunded later via BAS	Timing matters
Peak outlay	$91k
Customer deposit	-$25k	On order
Amount to fund	$66k

The last figure is what you are shopping for. In this example the sale might be $140k, yet the borrowing is under half of that, and a deposit made a large difference.

Our cash flow gap calculator does the same arithmetic over several weeks if you want to see the low point rather than a single total.

Can the customer carry part of the load?

This is the cheapest funding you will ever find, and a surprising number of owners never ask. Large buyers handle supplier terms every day. Reasonable requests include:

• A deposit to cover materials, particularly for custom or made-to-order work.
• Staged billing, with invoices at order, at production milestone and on delivery.
• Shorter terms on this order, for example 14 days instead of 45.
• Direct supply, where the buyer pays your supplier for the materials.

Frame it as protecting delivery, not as a worry about their credit. “To lock in the materials price and the production slot we’d invoice 25% on acceptance” is an ordinary sentence in commercial life.

How fast will the customer actually pay?

Terms on paper and behaviour in practice differ. If your buyer has annual income over $100 million, it must report on small-business payment times, and those figures are public on the Payment Times Reports Register. The regulator’s August 2026 update said 69.8 per cent of small-business invoices from reporting entities were paid within 30 days, which also means about three in ten took longer.

So before you agree 30-day terms with a household name, look them up. If their report shows many invoices running to 60 days, size the funding for 60, not 30. For smaller buyers who don’t report, trade references and a quick ask of other suppliers are the next best thing.

What can you borrow against?

Once you know the gap, here are the sensible tools, from the lightest to the heaviest.

Option	Best for	What to watch
Supplier credit	Repeat suppliers who trust you	Terms may be capped or withdrawn
Overdraft or line of credit	Small, temporary gaps	Limit may be too low for a one-off peak
Working capital loan	A defined gap with a clear repayment date	Repayments start straight away
Purchase order finance	Resellers with a confirmed order and a reliable buyer	Margin is shared with the funder
Invoice finance	After you’ve invoiced and are waiting	Doesn’t help with costs before invoicing
Secured loan against property	Larger amounts or a short trading record	Takes longer, puts an asset at risk

Often it is a combination. A deposit covers materials, an overdraft carries wages, and invoice finance releases the money tied up once the invoice is out.

Wondering which of these your numbers support? A short enquiry lets a person look at the order and the timing.

How much should the loan cost you?

Skip percentages and talk dollars. Take the fees and finance charges over the whole period and divide by the order’s gross margin. If the finance eats a third of the profit, that is a business decision you can make with open eyes. If it eats all of it, the order only makes sense as a loss leader, and you should price it that way.

Also include the less obvious costs: establishment fees, early repayment fees, GST on fees where it applies and any security costs. A business loan costs and fees guide lists what to ask for.

When should you say no, or yes to part of it?

Taking on the whole order is not always the right call. Consider:

• Concentration. If this buyer would become half your revenue and then pay slowly, one late payment can cause a crisis.
• Capacity. Can your people, premises or equipment actually produce the volume on time? Penalties for late delivery can erase the margin.
• Staging. A first delivery of 40% proves the process and generates cash for the rest.
• Price. If a volume discount took your margin to the bone, the finance cost may take it below zero.

Many buyers respond well to “we can commit to the first tranche by March and the second by May”.

What do lenders want to see?

Whoever you approach, they will ask for roughly the same things:

1. The purchase order or signed contract, with quantities, price and delivery dates.
2. Details of the buyer, including how long you’ve supplied them.
3. Your costs for filling it, ideally supplier quotes.
4. Recent bank statements and your latest BAS.
5. A simple forecast showing when money goes out and when it comes in.

If you’ve never put the last one together, our 13-week cash flow forecast guide shows how, and it is useful for you even without a lender.

If you’re already in the thick of it, the won a big contract and need to fund it page covers the same ground from the contract side.

A worked example (illustrative)

A packaging business receives an order worth $180k from a national retailer, payable 45 days after delivery. Peak outlay is $112k, mostly materials and casual labour. The owner negotiates a 20% deposit ($36k), which cuts the gap to $76k. She uses a $30k overdraft headroom and takes a six-month working capital loan for the remaining $46k, timed to be repaid within a month of the retailer’s payment.

The retailer’s report on the public register showed most small suppliers paid inside 30 days, so she added a two-week margin rather than a two-month one. The order was filled in two shipments, and the second was funded largely by the first payment.

Mistakes to avoid

• Accepting before pricing the finance. Margin on paper isn’t margin after fees.
• Borrowing for the whole sale price. You only need to fund the gap.
• Matching the term to delivery, not to payment. Repayment should land after the customer pays.
• Forgetting GST timing. You pay GST on purchases before you claim it, and you may owe GST on the sale before the customer pays.
• Skipping a buffer. Production slips; invoices get disputed.

A big order deserves a plan, not a gamble

A large order is how many businesses step up a level, and the ones that get through it well treat funding as part of the job rather than an afterthought. If the numbers work but the timing doesn’t, that is a solvable problem.

Tell us about the order: who it’s for, the value, when you deliver and when they pay. Enquiring takes about a minute, and it’s not a credit check, so your score stays where it is. We keep your details in one place instead of broadcasting them to lenders, and a person with lending experience reads the whole picture before phoning you. The more accurate your figures, the quicker we can suggest something that fits.

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