How Finance Can Fund Your Fit Out

Financing and budgeting for your office fit out and office refurbishment costs can be a large cash outlay but there are options for how you can finance these costs. Spreading out payments from 3-5 years can create manageable monthly payment plans for businesses looking at products such as hire purchase, finance lease or business loans seeking funds for tangible and non-tangible items.

Tangible Commercial Office Fit Out and Office Refurbishment Items

Tangible items (equipment, physical to touch) for your office fit out could include things such as the following examples; shelving, IT equipment and catering equipment.

Non-Tangible Office Fit Out Items

Non-tangible items for your office fit out and office refurbishment would include example costs that look at things like; floor tiles, building works, partitioning, HVAC, signage, building works and installation costs.

Costing Office Fit Out Finance Solutions

Fit out finance solutions can look at commercial fit outs and provide access to funding for fit out’s, refurbishments and equipment upgrades so that your workplace can meet your business needs and that of your people too. Enabling you as a business or organisation to compete within your industry, providing the best foundations to a successful, productive and progressive culture.

You could be looking at fit out projects that look at fixtures, fittings and furniture or technology installations or specific aspects of a fit out that are staged to suit your needs and resources as well as contemplating growth/adaptability for the future of your workplace too.

We spoke with Chris Martin, Director of Origin Finance to get his thoughts about funding fit out’s. Here’s what Chris had to say:

‘’In my opinion, fit out finance is one of the most underutilised products in the commercial finance world. I strongly believe that this is due to a common misconception as to what can and can’t be financed. Of course, items such as IT Equipment, Furniture and Catering Equipment to name a few are very easy to finance. However, fit out finance also covers Partitioning, Building Works, Decorating, Signage, HVAC, Floor Tiles and Installation. Essentially, a specialist fit out finance provider will put together a tailor-made finance package to fund the entire turnkey project. Fit out finance is covered by several finance products including Hire Purchase, Finance Lease or Business Loan and allows businesses to carry out fit outs without the large outlay by spreading the costs over several years, typically, three or five years, with manageable monthly repayments. Another common misconception about fit out finance and commercial finance in general is that finance is only utilised by businesses that cannot afford to buy outright. This is not the case at all, in fact, the vast majority of our customers have more than enough cash within the business to buy outright, instead, they utilise finance to take advantage of associated tax benefits and to protect cash resources. If you’re planning on having a fit out in the future, I strongly suggest contacting a specialist fit out finance provider such as Origin Finance to fully understand that funding options available to your business.’

You can see an example Origin Finance costing solution for £100k  here and check out the 2024 calculator quoting tool here.

Considering Sustainable Office Fit Outs and Commercial Refurbishments

We welcome sustainable and eco-friendly fit outs which can be supported with energy efficient options, material lifespans and match your sustainability goals to reduce your environmental impact but that also contemplate how to promote wellbeing within your office and educational workspaces too, such as considering; how balancing natural and artificial light can boost wellbeing, how glass can bounce light and how energy efficient options can be good for the environment and in saving your business/organisational overhead costs too.

Find out more about TBFO and our approach to sustainability here.

Beyond Budgets and Financing Office Refurb Costs: Creating Workspaces for Everyone

Seeking the finance for your business or organisational fit out is matched with defining what your office fit out criteria will be. Understanding your workplace as it stands today and the challenges your people face is a useful place with which to gain some insight into how to build a workspace that matches not only your company values and goals but that alleviates the pain points your people come up against in seeking and retaining employment along with how they work at their best within any given space.

With your workplaces, it’s in creating diverse opportunity for all of your people and considering the future of your onboarding as a business/organisation/educational facility such as a school, secondary school, college or university. Incorporating within your design brief disabled access and removing barriers for those that would find accessing the physical workspace otherwise challenging before embarking on your journey of a fit out is important and a legal requirement. It’s wise to analyse what you can do as a business and equal opportunity employer to assess what improvements can be made to ensure your workspace factors the needs of every team member. Building a welcoming space and positive culture for every individual.

Bespoke agile, hybrid and flexible workplaces can build in a tailored and varied approach to working by accommodating those that are neurodiverse, neurotypical or disabled so that they can work in a way that suits them, ensuring they are easily connected with their teams, colleagues and people as well as being able to work in a way that maximises their potential, motivations and role output within your business.

Recent data (according the Cushman and Wakefield) has uncovered that progress has been slow with the rates of disabled people in the workplace having fallen since the pandemic with rates still yet to recover. With exclusion of those people greatly affected and disproportionately impacted by financial barriers such as; the cost of living crisis and economic downturns like recession, individuals can also be at the exclusion end both socially and through poverty too. Fair opportunity is promoted when creating the right company/educational culture and this in part can be driven by the set-up of your business, educational body and organisational workspace that you offer because what you say you offer has to be backed up in the reality of the workplace hub that you also offer.

With the rise in AI and its capacity to take on mundane and processing roles, the future of the workplace lies in the people that you invest in. Your people are the power of your business and the more they can connect with a diverse range of individuals within their teams the greater capacity for innovation, evolution, progression, inspiration and creative drive to succeed exists. Social/human capital promotes 17% more productivity and organisations that value social capital are said to be 21% more profitable according to a study by Gallup. Cohesive and well-connected teams bring a sense of belonging and engagement to individuals, placing the workplace at the centre of connectivity, culture and forward focused momentum.

With this in mind, it’s not only about embracing AI within the workplace but in also addressing how the workplace will change the future of work combined with AI as well as recognising the huge shift and impact the advancements in technology will have on how we design our workspaces.

The future of the workplace will see a change in the way we value human thinking, considering problem solving and emotional intelligence at the higher end of the value scale, contemplating how we collaborate, generate ideas and share knowledge, over the jobs that AI can assist us with and will likely replace as the tech revolution continues to thrive. Moving away from the overwhelming and mundane job aspects to your people’s roles that AI can take on and allowing your workforce to become more highly focused and tuned into the output that benefits your teams and business better.

Understanding the finance options available to you as a business/organisation in how you could decide to budget and cost out your fit out or office refurbishment opens up the range of opportunity in what you can and could achieve when discussing your budgets, timeframes and the ideal brief you’d like to achieve with your design and build contractor. At TB Fit Out (Trevor Blake), we offer free site visits, quotes and space planning ideas for your commercial fit out and refurbishments. Helping to define you as a standout business and organisation within your industry.

We are committed to transforming your workspaces of today and tomorrow, taking into account your finances, your workforce and how your people need to collaborate, interact and inspire together to make your workplace the best space to work within and to produce the best outcomes from. Reach out and contact our friendly, expert, turnkey and project management team by email here or give us a zero obligation call on 01293 775509.  

NB: Please note, this is not an ad, any financial options mentioned are subject to an eligibility criteria and finance options follow an application process (all of which are separate to any TB Services) which if successful can be used against any fit out projects with TB Fit Out (Trevor Blake). We are not financial advisors or affiliated with any individual financial body or in any way set to financially gain from any recommendations we put forward or suggest.