25th Jan 2019

How to Finance Your Dream Office Fit Out in 2019

Despite popular belief, your organisation doesn’t need huge cash reserves to finance the perfect office fit out. So if this is what’s putting you off creating the ideal workplace for your business, it needn’t be.

It may be that you’ve already allocated the cash, but if you didn’t need to spend it on your fit out and repayments were 100% tax efficient, just think of what you’d be able to use the cash for elsewhere within your business…

Providing an inspiring work environment is important, and could benefit your people and your business massively. In a ‘human’ sense, you can create a greater sense of wellbeing in your workplace. And you could see a commercial return on your investment as your people benefit from being happy and motivated in their new surroundings.

With this in mind, we wanted to share some helpful information on finance options to get your fit out project off the ground.

Lease Purchase

Leasing is already a well-known option for other business investments like company cars but it’s less known that you can use it to the same benefit when fitting out your office.

You can use leasing for all aspects of a fit out including the design and furniture.

What is it?

Payments are made over a fixed period, typically over 3-5 years.

Pros

• Repayable in instalments, so there’s no need for large up-front payments or large VAT payments
• Repayments are fully tax allowable. This means they can be logged as a business cost and offset against profits for tax purposes.
• Monthly repayments are planned and can therefore be easily budgeted for.
• You preserve the borrowing power of your business, as this form of funding remains off the balance sheet.
• Ownership is transferred to you with a one-off final payment.
• VAT on the monthly repayments can be claimed back by VAT registered businesses.

CONS

• You need to be able to keep to your monthly payments for the duration of the lease.

Bank Loan

Pros

• Monthly repayments are planned and can therefore be easily budgeted for.
• The loan can be tied in with the lifetime of the products/equipment you’re buying.

Cons

• You need to be able to keep to your monthly payments for the duration of the loan.
• May have upfront fees and requests for charges or debentures
• Repayments could be subject to interest rate changes.
• Not tax efficient

PAYING CASH

Pros

• Up to £1,000,000 of the costs can be attributed to your business’s annual investment allowance on items like furniture, however not all elements of a fit out can be set against capital allowances, typically only around 60% is realised
• All assets belong to your company straight away.

Cons

• Your money is tied up in assets so can’t be used in other areas.
• Can limit your budget, which can limit what you’re able to achieve with your project.
• Isn’t fully tax deductible like some other options.

Before deciding on the type of finance to use for your fit out, think of the product you’re investing in. For example, tech such as laptops tend to need upgrading every few years so you may want to consider contract hire, whereas furniture can last a lot longer so a lease purchase may be a better option.

Our partner Plus Finance are experts in helping businesses fund their office fit out projects as cost and tax efficiently as possible. A special thanks has to go to Heather from their team for helping us ensure the information in this blog is all present and correct!

Want to Create a Motivating Work Environment for Your People?

As well as enjoying beautiful workspaces, our clients see a tangible commercial return from their investment in fitting out their workplace.

If you want to discover what it’s like to have an office full of happy and motivated people who know their health and wellbeing is looked after, visit us at WorkLife Central.